The completion of 13 years of homeschool, reflections after her graduation party

I smiled. I sighed. I ran my hand through my hair, shaking my head sadly, overwhelmed by a mixed sense of loss, longing and laughter all at once as I pondered the weekend that had come and gone. We’d come, we’d laughed, we’d joked, we’d danced, we’d antagonized each other -- this handful of weevils and war hawks from the Richmans’ online AP classes -- as we met, some of us for the first time, some of us like old friends, at our end-of-year party. In many ways, it felt like graduation -- the end of a big, wonderful . . . something. I blinked at the “I will miss you’s” and “Good luck with life’s” that covered my senior scrapbook page, words, like those of the average high schooler’s common yearbook, that were strange, sad and uncommon to me. I’d left with a deep sense of finality and sadness for the end of something that had only just begun; and I was left wanting. Wanting to stay; to “linger a little longer” as the old campfire song says: “Oh it’s such a perfect night; it will never seem quite right; that this should be our (first and) last goodbye.”
Memories of that somber midnight of reflecting on the AP-party-day’s events flood my mind again as I stare at this screen, with the final drafts of the final Excelsior spread out on the desk, preparing to say yet another “goodbye,” to scribble those words of finality, “Hope your life is great, I hope it’s been a wonderful year.” That same, deep sense of loss and finality pervades once again. So many endings!
Yet every end is also a memorial to all that came in between: I realize that no longer do mere @’s sprinkle that once-abstract directory -- now, familiar faces smile out at me. I smile back, in particular, as I see the name of my dear friend Gwen Umbreit. No, the first, “trial-run” year of co-editorship has certainly not been 100% smooth; we’ve had our moments. But somehow, out of the ink and paper of the E, a friendship has emerged, and this farewell is a tribute to such friendships as now we nod goodbye -- Gwen heads to Shippensburg this fall, and I, at least I think, to Ohio State University Honors College. Ends also mark beginnings, and here I’d like to mention another friendship hammered out of the violent war-days of our, well, online AP Economics games -- that with Ben Carr, whom I am proud to introduce as the 2001-2002 editor. My antithesis personality-wise, Ben has always been around to critique my papers, to give me his blunt (“honest”) opinions (which he possesses about everything), and to provide, well, interesting companionship via AIM. An active staff member this past year, Ben possesses bold ambitions for the E, and as I (and Gwen) pass the torch to him, I am confident that the Excelsior “will never be the same” once in his hands.
I sigh. I leave behind the editorship and all it entailed. But I smile as I remember, as I said in my very first article this year, that “the end of a matter is better than the beginning.”