Dear Readers,

It’s been a recent era of new experiences for me: learning to drive, getting contacts so I can finally see(!), and spending 30 hours stuck in Heathrow Airport. As everyone lands back on campus and settles into the rhythms of the new semester, I’m struck by how much everything can change, yet how much things can feel the same. I can see much more clearly—faces, the branches splintering into sharp fractals, classes to drop before the deadline—but what I’m seeing is familiar and comforting. The landscape outside the MBTA window from South Station to Providence. My roommates sprawled across our rug, “Good Luck, Babe!” shuddering over the speakers. And of course, all the lovely, lovely people of post- around our a-little-too-cramped room on the second floor of 88 Benevolent St.

For our first issue of the volume, it’s fitting that our writers are also thinking about beginnings and endings, renewal and remaining. In Lifestyle, the managing editors are reflecting on first experiences, including first tattoos, a first(ish) intercollegiate competition, first relationship retellings. In Feature, Ivy writes an elegy for the trans kids “left behind” in her home state of Texas. For Narrative, Joe reflects on a street named after him and changing legacies, while Vanessa remembers moments of enduring friendship through hardship. Then, Emily dives into the musical Miss Saigon’s history and her new experience watching it with her sister and mom. Before you end your post- reading, make sure you check out a new crossword by Ishan!

I’m glad that there are anchors in my life—these grounding people, places, and moments—even as the rest of life swirls in constant motion. I hope that as the new semester unfolds, you’re able to hold onto what comforts you (our new issue of post-, perhaps?) even as new experiences come and go.

Feeling new,
Emilie Guan
Editor-in-Chief