I don’t even know how to start this, to be frank; it feels alien to even consider writing a goodbye to WRGW. I guess I never really thought that something as constant and stable as the family I’ve found in radio is something that could ever possibly come to an end. And I know it’s not actually ending, just “changing,” but if I could choose, it wouldn’t change at all. If I could choose, I would prolong this experience and the time I have with these people for as long as possible.
What I found in WRGW is another family. I joined radio as a freshman and didn’t think it was much more than an hour out of my week to come in, play some music and go home. No one really listened to my show, I didn’t talk to anyone in the station and I sat in the control room alone. I applied for my first board position that spring and didn’t get it. Then I did that again the next semester, then again, and then again and never got anything. I just knew that this organization was not something I wanted to give up on.
The July after my sophomore year, Claire Lanthier emailed me asking if I’d be interested in the Music Blog Editor position. I obviously said yes. To say that that email changed my life would be ridiculously dramatic and completely and unimaginably true.
I didn’t really have many friends at this point in my GW career, and I was beginning to accept the fact that I probably wouldn’t find “my people” in college. I was proven wrong so quickly, it’s almost embarrassing. I met Ian Kearns while doing tech trainings for station members and I had a friend. I ran into Bryn Taylor eating lunch in the station and I had another. The entire board got together after the 2021 Fall Gig and suddenly I had a ton of friends, people that I call my best friends, sisters, family.
I went abroad that spring and had people that I missed deeply, and the even stranger part, I had people missing me, something I wouldn’t have believed four months prior. I tuned into board meetings at 1 a.m. just to see the faces of the people I loved so much. They didn’t even talk to me; I was just a little face on a computer screen, and they were in a room of other charismatic and smiling people, so consumed in the joy they received from just being around one another. I was more than content to watch on and look forward to walking back into the station in August.
This family I’ve found has made my senior year in WRGW nothing short of incredible. These people have seen and understood parts of me that I didn’t think anyone ever would. I know that the people I see every day, that I lay with on my couch, that I laugh with in the station, that I sing with, dance with, cry with, confide in, rely on and love so unequivocally are going to be family to me for the rest of my life.
Again, this is all very annoying and dramatic and emotional, and I’m realizing I didn’t even mention any of my actual radio shows. Of course, those were fun and I have some amazing memories and songs I associate with the station now. But my real shining achievement from my time in radio is tricking the most unbelievable group of people into being my friends, you’re all stuck with me.
Anyway, I’m done now. I’m going to try to name all the people I love, but I know they know. Abi, Bryn, Hannah, Anusha, Maxine, Jules, Max, Dylan, Adam, Robbie, Aryan, Kendall, Abby, Grace: whether or not you’re in radio, you’ve changed my life. I love you.
Can’t wait to read everyone’s infinitely more eloquent posts. Bye radio, bye WRGW. I owe you more than you know.
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