I have rewritten this countless times — no matter how many times I rearrange a sentence or add something new, I do not think I will be able to express how deeply I love the friends I have made here at Michigan State, Impact 89FM and in East Lansing.
In my junior year of high school, I put a keychain on my backpack that I had been given at a random conference. It seemed insignificant at the time, but it remained on my backpack through the rest of high school, the summer before college and through moving to East Lansing in August of 2020. While trying to explore opportunities online and leaving my comfort zone, I recognized the logo that was on this keychain. I did not realize that the organization was a Michigan State one. In a wave of unknowns and moving out of my hometown, seeing this logo brought me an odd sense of familiarity despite knowing nothing about it. That logo was for Impact 89FM.
It’s strange now that I cannot imagine my life without this radio station. These last four years have shaped me in more ways than I will ever be able to describe because of the people I have had the fortune to be surrounded by. My coworkers, who grew to become my closest friends, have made my life and myself as a person so much better. We all stumbled across this radio station in some way or another with a common love for music — it was a thread that stitched us all together.
Because of that common love for music, it feels nearly impossible to capture these last four years in a playlist. If I did, the playlist would most likely be 20 hours long. All I know for sure is that my fondest memories always involve music and Impact 89FM: singing karaoke, going to concerts, seeing friends perform their own music live, crowding around a singular speaker to hear the best part of a song. These people and this radio station have become my home. My younger self would not recognize the person I am today but for all the best reasons. I owe so very much to the people of Impact and the soundtracks that are attached to every memory. I have never felt so much love and warmth in my entire life.
And it’s bittersweet to be graduating. I will be graduating alongside people who have become my family, and I will be returning for one more year for my master’s degree. Music, this radio station and these people have become engraved into my life, and it feels incredibly heavy to know I won’t have the privilege of seeing them every single day. I hope all of us are able to stumble across a place in the future that brings us the same sense of belonging that the rare Impact 89FM has.
