Letter From the Editors: When Life Goes Astray

Sammi Bray ’25 & Olivia Silvey ’25

Editors-in-Chief

We are now halfway through the fall 2023 semester, and we have all celebrated a lot of triumphs. We survived the first day of school (which feels like years ago), turned in the first papers and tests, and now, slowly but surely, this round of midterms is beginning to fade into the past. Last week, during Bicentennial Weekend, we celebrated the College’s historic accomplishments and felt a little closer to the community we belong to. We have a lot to be proud of, and it’s important to recognize that. But it would be unrealistic to say that things always go smoothly; they absolutely do not. We all face multiple bumps in the roads and points in the year… or week… or sometimes the day… where everything feels a little too heavy to carry. We feel that uncomfortable yet tempting desire to give up.

This feeling is not something we, as your Editors-in-Chief, are immune to, even though we may seem to have it all together from the outside (yeah, right). Through working on this paper as your EICs this semester, and just existing in our personal lives, we have experienced many moments where we have felt we have dropped the ball. Whether it is a typo that our eyes glaze over on Monday nights after working on the paper all weekend, printing an article that was not perfect or well received or simply the nerves we feel every week writing these letters, there is always something that makes us feel like we have failed you, our readers, or ourselves. Each week, we have a moment where we turn to each other and think, “Should we resign? Is it November yet?” and constantly the looming feeling of, “Are we doing this right?”

Sometimes it is just a little, sometimes a lot, but with that feeling also comes the recognition that it is part of the human experience. We are sure that everyone can relate to that sinking feeling in your stomach as you open that 40 page reading or start on that dense problem set at 11 p.m. Students and faculty seem to have reached the point of the semester when things are finally routine, but bordering on redundant. It is very easy to lose sight of the bigger purpose or what drives you to get up and do it again and again every day. Maybe you did not ace that exam or essay like you thought you would. Maybe your performance during your game was not what you were hoping for, or your plan to get ahead on homework somehow slipped through the cracks. These moments are especially disappointing — we feel so close to what we want and hope for we can almost taste it and then, all of a sudden, it disappears. We are left alone to question our abilities, our standards and our character.

As tempting as the feeling is to throw in the towel, we must use these frustrations and failures to return to the classroom, to work, to the field, to the stage and try again. This is what matters. This is what we should be proudest of — that other uniquely human quality we all have, resilience. We have to keep getting back up after being knocked down – we owe it to ourselves and most importantly, each other.

You all are what keep us coming back every week, to try again even after what we feel like are our lowest points. Sometimes, we plan interviews that we hope will be the turning point for a story. We get excited for the opportunity to sit down and listen to people’s stories as they unfold in front of all our eyes; to ask questions that have been in our minds since the story first fell into our laps. Sometimes, our plans change, and sometimes, our questions cannot be answered by the people we most want to hear from.

Even though it may be the result of decisions beyond our control, we still feel like we failed our readers. Beyond that, we feel like we are doing a disservice to all the faculty, staff and students who have a stake in these wide array of issues at Trinity. We might lose some momentum. We were and are and will be disappointed when these situations are presented to us — but that does not mean our work stops.

This is the perseverance we must all – and do – bring to the table. We feel your frustrations, your low moments, your confusion and your defeats. But we also feel your triumphs, successes, smiles and satisfactions. We are here to walk with you through it all, and we hope you feel them too.