My first impression of the Lib goes like this: I’m ten, sitting outside the robotics room in the old LASA building, waiting for my brother’s meeting to finish. Trying to ignore the furtive glances, I looked around for something to feign interest in. I was hoping for a colorful poster. Instead, I found a crumpled issue of the Liberator on the floor with a distinct shoeprint. 

Eight years later, the sight has become somewhat familiar. I can find issues peppered in the corners of my classes, underneath canisters of paint, and even on the wall when some students use them to experiment with blackout poetry. And although each one is a stalking reminder of unedited stories and missing interviews, it has somehow remained a steady constant through the whirlwind of high school.

In my freshman year of high school, I wasn’t supposed to be in the newspaper. Hours before electives were finalized, I started at orchestra, somehow considered AP Computer Science, and ended at the newspaper. On my first day of school, I remember slinking into the classroom, subtly scanning the room for any other practically nonexistent freshman. I remember reluctantly muttering a soft “PAAAAGE 11,” mortified at the brief blast of attention as we flipped through the summer issue. I remember being horrified when Edith — the editor-in-chief who I was perpetually intimidated by — explained that we had to reach out to random people and write articles about it every quarter. 

Hence, most of all, I remember telling my mom on the car ride home that there was no way I was doing this for more than a year.

Staying sincere to my word, I spent the better part of the four years dragging Clara from debate meetings to keep me company during courtyard interviews — truly, thank god for her — and somewhere in between, editing articles between physics corrections and cramming for the next calculus test. By the time I got to my junior year, newspaper was grumbling through finalizing pages and frantically texting editors to ask where a story or graphic is hours before sending it to the publisher. 

Ironically, through all of it, the thing that I excitedly anticipated was the idea of writing my thirty. Every May, I would greedily read through the seniors’ thirties, always appalled at how nostalgia seemed to saturate every word. In my head, my thirty was always the thing I fantasized spewing complaint-tinted poetry in during any minor inconvenience.

Now, actually writing the thirty I’ve been longing for since freshman year, I find myself feeling more wistful. Because when I look back, the fast pace of deadlines and publishing cycles fade to the background. Rather, I affectionately reminisce of complaining about articles with Megan between conversations, or frantically texting her, Victor, and Ethan at three a.m. before sending pages to Ms. Crescenzi. I think fondly of grabbing crisp, freshly published newspapers every nine-weeks to shove in the hands of my unimpressed friends and to hand to my parents. When I instinctively shove a jacket in my backpack, I recall (maybe a little less warmly) acclimating to the polar temperatures of LASA, and the even colder climate of Mr. Garcia’s room.

So, reflecting, I find myself ending with a desire to tell ten-year-old me to not judge newspaper too harshly. Because as I leave the Lib, I leave appreciating the community and experiences that can only be found through a shared love of the adrenaline-fueled satisfaction that comes with flipping through the inky pages of the newest issue.