I was sitting with two of my friends in the McShane Center the other day, and we started talking about why we chose Fordham. After discussions of financial aid and the endless possibilities and wonders that come with being in New York City, the conversation fell down a long rabbit hole that I could talk about endlessly: fate. 

We started talking about how interesting it was that, before college, we had no clue who each other was. In college, I met so many new people in such a short period of time that I couldn’t keep names straight with the talk of majors, hometowns and dorm buildings. 

It was interesting to learn about these peoples’ past 18 years where, to them, I didn’t even exist. While I took my first steps, hung out with my friends, celebrated birthdays and learned how to drive, these people, the people I now call my friends, were doing the same things unbeknownst to me. 

After not even knowing each other for our entire lives, I now make new memories, experiences and milestones with these people, all while learning about the stories, moments and quirks that make them the people they are today. But sharing these stories sounds like recounting a TV show that’s been taken off streaming, and the details are solely left to what’s told by the people we meet. 

It’s hard to keep track of the details in these stories my friends tell me, which makes me realize my friends find it hard to follow along when I share my stories with them. As I recounted tales of endless nights when I stayed in my school with my classmates, participating in traditions that, at the moment, felt like they were the most important thing in the world, I felt as though people at college would never understand how important and formative these memories were to me. 

These people who made up the formative experiences of my childhood, who had quirks and silly characteristics, people I grew up seeing every day for 13 years, are now pages in a yearbook that sit on a dusty bookshelf in my childhood bedroom. They’re out somewhere in the world right now, meeting people I have no clue existed, making new memories and possibly telling stories about me. 

And so comes this. I saw a quote once that said something along the lines that you are a piece of every person you’ve ever met. And I truly think that’s true. Physically, I have my mother’s eyes and my father’s nose, but the people you meet imprint something on you, whether it’s a memory, a habit or a feeling. They can be the most impactful person you’ve met, or they could have just held a door open for you or helped you in sophomore year math class. I’ve had this impact on other people, I presume. To what degree, I don’t know and probably never will, but I wonder who and where in the world is being told a story about me, someone they’ve never met and possibly never will meet.  

I often wonder how different my life would be if my parents decided to move to another town or if I chose a different college to attend. I would be around completely different people in a different environment. Would I be a different person? What would that version of me be like? Is it a better version? 

You can wonder about this for your entire life: choices. Do we ever make the right one? Sometimes, it’s easy to distinguish if a choice was right or wrong, like if you burn your hand on a hot pan or accidentally flood a bathroom. But other choices, where the alternate choice isn’t clear or known, make it harder to know if you’ve chosen correctly. 

But maybe there isn’t a right answer. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s so interesting that life has worked out in a way that I’m sitting on the Loyola Hall porch writing this right now instead of possibly skiing at a school in Colorado or studying mathematics in a college in Washington, neither of which I’m good at. It’s interesting how the people I’ve met made so many different choices in life, had different experiences and are from different places, yet we are still at the same school in the Bronx at the same point in time. 

Whatever school you choose, place you go or experience you make, people who were seemingly meant to meet each other together are brought together by fate, or whatever you want to call it. Whether that reason is friendship, academics, work, a relationship or even someone who isn’t meant to be a friend but a learning experience, every connection we make impacts us in some way. Each decision we make, which brings new people, places and experiences, can never be truly right or wrong. There’s a reason that choices brought you to the place you’re in right now. You just need to find it.

Cristina Stefanizzi, FCRH ‘27, is a new media and digital design major from Pelham, N.Y.