This is good enough

Katie Bashista

Spectrum editor

I’m currently sitting in The Commonwealth Times production room during my last Sunday production. Caitlin is attempting to complete a Sudoku puzzle, Georgia and Ryan are working diligently and Zach, Jessica and Noah are trying to explain something baseball-related to Saffeya.

“There’s an inning,” Noah said. “And there are nine of them.”

I joined the CT three semesters ago as the opinions editor, after heeding warnings from people that the CT staff was “cliquey.” I still remember my shaky voice as the then-executive editor, Sophia Belletti, interviewed me over the phone for the job. I remember having that same shaky voice as I pitched my first article, fearing Sophia and the rest of the staff would think it was stupid. Maybe they did think it was stupid, but it got published, and Sophia is now one of my best friends.

Fast forward a semester, I was still opinions editor and I was going through a tough time personally. Not to sound dramatic, but I would leave the CT production room two to three times per day to go outside and cry and then come back inside as if nothing happened. No one ever said anything to me so I guess I covered it up pretty well.

The people in that room didn’t really know I was going through anything or that I started to feel significantly better just by being around them. Their never-ending support for me, both professionally and personally, was incredible. I remember looking around the room at the end of that semester thinking, “these people have no idea what they’ve done for me.”

They have critiqued me and held me accountable, making me a better writer, editor and co-worker. They’ve listened to me vent about important things and stupid things. They put up with the fact that I laugh at everything, even Jeffrey’s worst jokes.

I could write a paragraph about every single person on staff, but that would take up another spread in this paper. So instead, I will just name a few things I’m thankful for:

Airpod sharing, dance parties when we start losing it at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday, shared Christian’s pizzas, the fuzzy blue blanket, Fadel’s swipes, that one broken chair that’s missing the back, making it the perfect footrest, Ryan’s sarcasm and Dunkin’ happy hour.

Fadel, Georgia, Zach, Caitlin, Ryan, Saffeya, Erin, Jeffrey, MP, Andy, Nia, Jessica and Shaun — I wouldn’t have wanted to spend as many hours as I did this semester with anyone else.

I’ll think about the CT every day when I sit down in whatever production room awaits me in the future. Thank you all for bringing out the best in me when I was feeling my worst and thank you for reminding me of what’s important.

In classic “Newspaper Movie” fashion, I will leave you all with just two final words:

Run it.