This time of week, it’s no surprise to anyone who knows me well to see me zooming through campus on a golf cart stacked with newspapers. It’s a Wednesday, after all. It’s paper delivery day, and I tag along with my pal Natalia—better known as The Villanovan’s unpaid intern– to distribute our paper across campus.
Unlike most other Wednesdays, however, this is my last ride. This is the last time I’ll ever feel the wind in my hair while rounding the bend to Dougherty Hall, and the last time I’ll see my name on a byline in print.
Stop number one is the loading dock, where we heave the papers onto the cart. Our first drop off is not too far. It’s right inside Dougherty’s Office of Student Involvement. It feels like just yesterday that I sat inside that room with my co-editor and my advisors for the paper for our weekly meeting, at first intimidated by the task before me, but a year later overflowing with gratitude and pride.
Kicking the golf cart back into ignition, we head down South Campus: home to my freshman dorm. Here, I often find myself grappling with bittersweet memories. Far from the idyllic, it was a brutal transition filled with rejection and loneliness. It’s hard to ignore the feelings that were so prevalent for a large part of my freshman year. But as I pass by the smiling faces traversing Stanford Hall, I am reminded that my rejection turned into redirection. If everything had gone to plan, I would never have eventually met the friends who deemed me an honorary resident of Stanford. Experiencing snowball fights, projector movie nights and late night talks, I was welcomed into what would become lifelong friendships.
Onward, we cruise toward Bartley. Bound for the newsstands at Holy Grounds, I pass by the table where I had my morning bagel and coffee during sophomore year while living in the Quad. That year, I made a pact to put myself out there, to become someone who always says yes, even when intimidated; it opened up a world of opportunities and new meaningful connections. That was the year I became an editor.
Reaching Conn next, I recall I walked up these same stairs underneath the flags on my first tour of campus. I look back on standing by the scaled model of Villanova’s map while on my tour, struggling with a sense of shameful nerves that can only be understood by a 16-year-old girl. Little did she know, she would eventually be standing behind that map as a tour guide a few years later.
Soon after, we arrive at the Saint Augustine Center. Its winding stairs remind me of all the times I took company in my professors’ office hours. I owe a lot to the time spent in the office of my professors, who instilled confidence in my abilities and supported my passions. I’m leaving Villanova a much more confident student and person because of them.
As we cruise from Falvey to St. Rita’s, our golf cart often prompts many waves and smiles from the friends we pass in the Rowan Green. Moments like these, however brief, are grounded in familiarity and care. I will greatly miss Villanova’s tight-knit community, but I always will strive to embody this sense of warmth wherever I go.
Finally, arriving at the daunting wooden doors of Tolentine, I drop the final stack of papers right along the stairs. Freshman year, I blasted Long Island’s treasured artist Billy Joel in my wired headphones on my trek to the fourth floor, feeling the weight of my homesickness. And though I am writing this ahead of my last newspaper stop, I anticipate that I will encounter a strange new sense of homesickness– mourning future loss of the present. Although, I must admit, I will not miss those treacherous hikes up to the fourth floor.
Soon, it will be time to leave our last drop-off spot, and reach my final destination. As we park, our story ends here at the basement of Corr Hall. Walking to the door, I recall that on the day of my first ever staff meeting, I had no clue there was a separate entrance to The Villanovan office. I ended up in a dark and dreary hallway inside Corr, until someone found me like a lost puppy and redirected me to my meeting. I’m glad to say, I don’t feel so lost anymore.
Unlike the paper delivery I went on today, my own route over these four years has been winding, and at times unexpected. I had no idea what I was getting into when I signed up for the paper. But if I hadn’t gone through this journey feeling misdirected, I would have never become an editor, then an Editor-in-Chief. I would never be able to look at the pale blue walls of Corr basement, and recall production nights surrounded in a room full of people I look up to more than anything.
If I could, I would go on another 1,000 words with merely the names of people from Villanova who have given me the world; but, unfortunately, I think our copy desk might want to run me over with that golf cart if I did that. So, I’ll leave with just a piece of parting advice: Don’t be afraid to be lost, that’s how you’ll find your destination.
