By Julia Barth, Editor-in-Chief
It’s 9:50 a.m. I’m walking down Hughes Avenue with my backpack hung on my back. I see the student houses to my left and our campus to my right. The sun’s rays feel like a warm hug on my face.
It’s 12:58 p.m. My class is chatting as my professor enters the room. Some ask each other about the homework and some ask each other about their plans for the night. She quiets us down and we begin our uninterrupted, 80-minute lesson.
It’s 4:30 p.m. I sit on the bottom floor of the library and type until my frail fingers feel like they’re about to fall off. I buy myself a bagel as a reward.
It’s 7:15 p.m. My friends and I gossip, probably a little too loudly, wherever we find ourselves. In our dorm, as freshmen. In the library, as sophomores. In the kitchen, as seniors. I never get sick of rehashing the same things over and over with them.
It’s 9:27 p.m. The Griffin is at its “peak fun time.” We’re either debating a topic or being vulnerable or sharing funny stories. In those moments, my smile feels permanently plastered on my face.
It’s 11:17 p.m. “The Uber is three minutes away,” someone shouts as I wonder what characters I’m going to see that night. It’s the best guessing game.
100 Days articles ask us to sum up our experiences at Canisius. That is precisely how I would sum it up. A collection of moments seared into my memory not because they were so grand and monumental, but because they were small and special to me. A handful of little moments like these, and so many more, are what I extract from the depths of my brain when I want to relive the times I was happiest in the last four years. And it’s these in-between moments that I think are going to be the hardest to leave behind.
When I sat down to write this article, I thought of all the people I wanted to thank. There’s so many, from my family to my professors to my roommates to The Griffin staff and all my other Canisius friends. But I couldn’t get this nagging thought out of my head to thank people that I didn’t know, that I don’t really know. You know, the people you might say “hi” to in the halls, the people you see out every weekend, the strangers in the tunnels, the people you had a class with once, the people that somehow continue to weave in and out of your life for years.
I think of this eclectic assortment of people. In my imagination I put them all in a room together, except the room is the palm of my hand and I’m carrying them with me wherever I go. Because how do you let go of people who made you feel things? How do you leave behind people who fundamentally changed you, even in the tiniest of ways? I don’t want to.
Coming to Canisius seemed like a tough decision at the time. Both my siblings went here, and I didn’t want to seem like I was just settling. Four years later, I can look back and say I was certainly not settling, and that it was the best decision I’ve made. I’ve grown more than I ever thought in four years, and if high school graduate Julia could see me now, she’d be moved to tears with pride (and she’d love how funny I am).
If you’ve been a frequent reader of my work in The Griffin, you know I like to get sentimental. Being at this school and leading this paper have been the greatest honors of my life. But it’s the people I’ve met doing it along the way that have crept their way into my heart and stuck themselves there like glue. I will never forget the late nights publishing The Griffin, the kitchen conversations at 166 Hughes, the many nights out around Buffalo (some — admittedly — more dingy than others), the dorm hangouts in Dugan, the late-night library study sessions, the figuring-ourselves-out in Frisch, the walks to and from classes and everything in between.
So, to end, I’d like to thank my family, my roommates, my closest friends (especially my Griffin people — I couldn’t have done any of this without Patrick Healy and the rest of the staff by my side), my lovely and intelligent professors (shoutout to Dan Higgins and Dr. Fajardo-Heyward for not getting sick of me when I registered for your classes semester after semester, and to Dr. Wanzer and Dr. Irwin for being wonderful professors and people) and the incredibly talented and hardworking staff of Canisius who has helped me more than they know.
But most of all, I’d like to thank everyone else. Those people I mentioned before. Those who say “hi” to me in the halls. Those who always showed up to my parties. Those who I’ve laughed with and complained with and made lasting memories with. I will miss you the most.
I hope I’ve left a positive impact on the Canisius community, and though I am devastated to be leaving, I will be forever grateful that I found a place with people that I love enough to call “home.”
