When I was 5 years old, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. While I was unaware of it at the time, she had been given a finite number of years to live. The entirety of my childhood became defined by my mother’s disease — regardless of how much my parents tried to hide its effects from me — and the lack of control I had over the events unfolding within it. As the cancer spread to other parts of her body and she worsened, I was slotted into the role of a caretaker. When my dad told me that she would be moved into hospice, my role of caretaker suddenly felt useless and quickly transformed into being a bystander. No matter how hard I tried, my life was spinning out into paths I was horrified of and I had to sit back and watch it happen.

When my mother passed, I was quickly ripped out of the childhood I had expected and thrown out into the unknown. Any plans that I had imagined for my life — career, college, marriage, children — became fuzzy. I had imagined all these things, like most young adults do, with my mom as an integral, immovable part of them. With her gone, it felt like the preconceived structure I had idealized for my life suddenly had a gaping hole punched through the center.

When I moved on to high school, it seemed that everyone had an inherent, built-in life plan that, for me, had dissolved while I was wasting away in my room, swallowed by grief. My entire life became blurry — I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think and every day began to smooth into one long, unending moment of grief and indecision. It slowly became easier for me to deal with my lack of control by convincing myself that things just happened to me. I struggled with feeling a connection between the life in my head and the life I was living — while I knew that I could have the potential to live my own life, it felt impossible to me.

Around my junior year of college, I decided that I needed a change. I was desperate to be able to direct some aspect of my life, no matter how insignificant it appeared to be. Ultimately, deciding to be part of Pipe Dream ended up being the exact change I needed. The idea of being able to try something new, something that I was interested in, felt huge to me. Even though I was just a contributor, the small taste of agency I got was the first step in taking control of my life. I finally declared a major and minor, I decided to study abroad (and met a lot of wonderful new people) and I applied to graduate school.

It only helped that I ended up absolutely loving my time at Pipe Dream. I quickly became infatuated with being on the editing side of the stories that people wanted to tell. Whether they were about complex socio-political movements or ranking Spider-Man video games, I couldn’t wait to see what people wrote about every week. Pipe Dream also introduced me to some truly amazing people, helping me feel like I had a tangible place after the majority of my friends went on to different graduate programs. For the first time in my life, I was able to form a community of my own, no matter how small.

I can’t deny that there are just some things you can’t control — the 10-year anniversary of my mom’s passing this March was a poignant reminder of that. But my time at Pipe Dream helped me realize that life is going to keep passing me by, whether I like it or not. I can either let myself get swept up in it, or I can choose to take control of the one life I have and make it into something meaningful.

On to my thank yous!

To Wendy Stewart: Thank you for being such a fantastic mentor over the past few years! You’re the first teacher I’ve had who I felt really cared about the lives of your students and the world we were growing up into. I’m sad to be leaving the Writing Center, but I’m incredibly grateful for all of the wonderful things I’ve learned from you (both academic and just about life) during my time there.

To Leah: Thank you for being such a bright light in my life the past year! I can’t believe our Friday morning breakfast chats are finally coming to an end. Thank you for giving me a lot of extra love when I needed it, both when you knew I did and when you didn’t. I can’t wait to be friends with you for many more years to come!

To Hadley: Thank you for helping me feel like I belonged in the English grad program! I was absolutely terrified of the prospect of grad school, but you made me understand that my spot was deserved. You’re a wonderful person, and I hope we continue to make empty dinner plans long after our time at Binghamton comes to an end.

To my Copy crew — Emma, Sasha, Dylan, Stephanie and Max: Thank you for making me laugh every Wednesday and Sunday night! I feel pretty lucky that we were able to find such a great group of lovely, smart and funny people who, despite barely knowing each other at the start of the term, mesh unbelievably well together. I know you all have incredibly bright futures ahead of you, and I can’t wait to see where you all end up!

To Allison and Lia: Thank you for teaching me everything I know about Copy! If it wasn’t for you two accepting my application, I’d probably be doing something very different with my life. Also, thank you both for being a guiding force to me and Emma long after you left copy — the section wouldn’t be the same without you!

To Emma: You’ve been the best deskmate a girl could ask for! Thank you for being such a lovely person to get to know — it still feels crazy that we weren’t really friends before this year. I can’t even begin to picture not hanging out with you every Wednesday and Sunday night! I’ll miss our gossip sessions and (way too lengthy) debriefs — they were quite literally the highlight of my week. You’re incredibly smart, beautifully kind and endlessly genuine — I can’t wait to see all the amazing things you do (both as managing editor and beyond)! I’ll miss you so much!

To Kiki: Thank you for being my favorite person! You endlessly continue to impress me with your intelligence, your emotional bandwidth, your humor and your strength, especially throughout the past few months. I know you’ll hate this, but you are the best person I know, through and through, and I’m so lucky to be able to call you my best friend. I can’t thank you enough for working line by line through this column with me and being the realistic voice I needed — I don’t know what I would do without you.

To my dad and Suzanne: Thank you for being the ultimate guiding force in my life. No matter how many stupid mistakes I make, you two are always there to pick me back up and convince me that I’m on the right track. Also, extra special thank you to my dad for giving me the extra push I needed for this column — apologies for the last-minute panicked phone call. I can’t thank you both enough for all of the sacrifices you’ve made to ensure that I live a happy and successful life — both the ones that I saw and the ones that I didn’t. In my opinion, you’re the best parents in the world. Love you both lots!

To Mom: This is for you! Hope you like it.

Isabella Tomaselli, a second-year graduate student studying English, is Pipe Dream’s assistant copy desk chief.