Graphic by Megan Eloise/The Gazelle

Where do you know yourself best? Few people find the answer to this question on a cluster of map coordinates. Though we are often asked for home cities and airport codes to delineate our identities, the places that matter most are usually smaller, and nameless: the neighborhood basketball court, the prayer mat, the lazy Susan’s slow revolve on a family dinner table. These are places we go to see versions of ourselves, versions that we end up liking and hope to perpetuate.

For a long time, The Gazelle was a place like this. Coming down to production every Saturday became more than a ritual; it revealed limits, qualities and inner joys that we’d previously never known. Becoming a Gazelle member encouraged and demanded us to change; we grew to fill in the gaps between ourselves and the lines of responsibility drawn for us. We learned to answer to each other’s names.

But The Gazelle has not been without its discouraging moments. As we enter into our last issue as editors-in-chief, we look back fondly on many good moments — brought about by a wonderful team and the rotation of brilliant ideas, wry cynicism and genuine passion they offer. But it is hard not to see, in the brief stretch of the past, the disappointments, surprises and ugly moments that three years of coverage on university growth can expose.

There were lows, frustrations with various bodies and groups on campus. It took a long time to realize that the people we encountered had different agendas from The Gazelle’s. It took a longer time to realize that these agendas, though divergent and often inconvenient, could be just as valid as our own. We began The Gazelle excited, if not confident in our abilities. We’re leaving a little chastened, a little wiser.

Where do you know yourself best? It is very likely that four years at NYU Abu Dhabi will change your answer to that question. You might, in fact, graduate without an answer. As the semester winds down, Joey and I find ourselves with one less stable station in our lives, one less descriptor, a redacted line in our email signatures. Perhaps we decided on an Identity Issue because we sensed this impending absence, and the suddenly free Saturdays we will encounter next semester.

Frequently a source of angst or shame, identity is not something to boast about, to tally in promotional brochures. The goal of this semester’s last issue was not to focus on the places where we are most comfortable and sure of ourselves. Rather, we hoped the issue could talk more about the loss of those places instead, and where that loss pushes us.