I know it’s probably cliché to admit, but I’ve waited my whole life for a community to call my home. I didn’t really expect for it to be here.

I came to Trinity expecting less than a life-changing experience. Walking onto campus for the first time, I noticed the trees, the cats and the way the grass swayed gently because they leave the guards on their mowers just short enough. I didn’t think that I’d meet so many people. There are so many that I didn’t even really have to look. There are so many that, instead of me having to seek out friends at events or by bumping into them in the hallways, they found me, and they liked something about me.

I joined the Trinitonian because of one of these friends. Samara Gerstle, editor-in-chief and now my boss, used to be a classmate and a study abroad confidant. We studied abroad in Ireland together a year and a half ago, and we traversed the city together. We wrote together; we shared a pint together; and we whispered late-night gossip to each other in a Dublin hotel room. I remember us laughing, and I remember how I couldn’t imagine a better friend in the whole world. I still can’t.

When we got home, she came up to me one day and asked me about what I was doing the next semester. I was already working a job, but she sold me on the beauty and grandeur that came with working for a little campus paper called the Trinitonian. I remember being unsure that I could keep up with yet another obligation. I remember not knowing if I could even handle writing like a “journalist,” whatever that means.

She looked at me, and she smiled so big, and she told me I could do anything I wanted to, no matter what. I shrugged, probably laughed it off. She told me just to think about it.

Now, all this time of “just thinking about it” later, I spend all my days locked up in the newsroom, a tiny little basement space with white LED lights and no windows. You would think I’d be miserable, chained to Adobe InDesign all night stuffed in a room with 10 other people, but I’ve just now realized that I can’t imagine my weeks without this night. I can’t imagine my life without all the things I’ve learned.

Now, I know that my beloved Oxford comma has to stay at the door when I come in. Now, I have the gut feeling about whether an article needs a photo or an illustration. And now, I know what it feels like to see a reporter grin with glee, barely hidden over the slip of newspaper on a Thursday afternoon, right after they see their article in print for the very first time.

This room holds so many memories for me. Sam, with her blanket tied around her neck because this room feels like a mini freezer. Tess Gagliano, photojournalism editor, and how she taught me how to use Photoshop at the last minute. Diya Contractor, managing editor, and how she plays the same song over and over again at three in the morning, delirious, and we all dance around, because what else is there to do? Evelyn Ragsdale, special sections editor and copy editor, and the notes she leaves on my pages when someone gets the wording just right. The mock-awards ceremonies, the late-night Starbucks runs with Katie Amdur, former news editor, the raucous laughter that only bubbles out long, long after the sun sets. I’m taking all of it with me, the energizing and the exhausting.

When I first got hired as an editor, I looked at my seat and couldn’t imagine filling the shoes of the Pulse editor before me, Lauren Roddis, a human so full of light and love that she blinded me. She taught me so much about patience and connection, how to lift people up to see they should be celebrated. I texted her the first night I put an issue together: “First real morning at your desk, Lauren. Thinking of you,” and she told me, “Aww, Devon, it’s your desk now. Sending my love to you!”

And you know what? It is my damn desk now. I have lived and cried and sang here. I’ve made it my own. I’ve realized that this paper is so much more than a “little campus paper.” It’s one of the biggest projects I’ve ever worked on, and I’m so extremely proud to have my name on it, to leave my legacy behind.

Next semester, I’m studying abroad in Northern Ireland again, right where my journey with this paper started. I can’t wait to brag about my little campus paper, a community that changed my life. To the Trinitonian: You are my home. I love you. I love you so much that it’s never truly goodbye; It’s just see you later.