Since I was homeschooled for ten years and attended junior college for two and a half of those ten years, I never imagined that I would get a “normal” graduation as a senior. All of my friends at the local high school had been looking forward to this date for years, and all I thought would be happening at my graduation was my mom just saying “you’re finished”. Around January of my senior, that idea all changed. I got an email from the College of Lake County (CLC), my junior college, inviting me to participate in their graduation ceremony for the class of 2021. I signed up to walk at graduation, and I knew that when May 15th came around, the day of my graduation, I would be more than ready to walk the stage.
The night before graduation I was not ready to graduate. As I said goodnight to my parents and got ready for bed, I thought of all the things that would be ending tomorrow. The largest part of my life, the fact that I was homeschooled, would be ending the very next day. Never again would I be the high school kid in the college classes, never again would I be able to call my mom and dad my teachers. I wasn’t expecting these feelings to arise before graduation, and they made me feel like a part of myself was dying when I graduated. I know this sounds dramatic, but when your entire life growing up is unique to the majority of the population, how would you feel when it all ended?
As I was feeling overwhelmed and frankly mournful of all of this ending, I reflected on all of the experiences that I had had over the past 10 years, all of the things that had made my life so unique. As I was going through my life, I never realized how different my experiences were until I had reached the end. I stared going to college when I was 16, I had worked a full time job in addition to being a full time college student, I went to a slightly crazy but really fun homeschool co-op for years before I moved on. I stayed up all night, thinking about the life that I had led up until this point. There were tears, there was laughter, there were some 3:00 a.m. episodes of Magnum PI, I even read through some old assignments and looked at my old math textbooks. I mean, how many people in the public school system learned math through Life of Fred, a series of books where a five year old professor and math genius teaches you math.As I laid on my trampoline, watching the sunrise, I couldn’t help but be grateful for my weird life up until this point.
Finally, as the sun rose, I got my shoes on, grabbed my dogs, and took a walk. I walked by the high school that I would have attended, the football field where I would have watched games, and thought about how different my life would have been. Sure, missing out on prom isnt’ that big of a deal, but where would I be in this world had my parents not decided to homeschool me? Would I be as brave as I am now? As outgoing? Would I have been burnt out by school? As I walked by my old elementary school, I think about the last day that I went there as a student, and how temporary our homeschooling situation felt at nine years old. Turns out, after 10 years I really liked my parents temporary solution to our education.
I got home, got ready, and drove up to CLC with my parents and siblings. I put on my cap and gown, put on my cords and medals, and got ready to walk the stage. As I crossed and shook the president’s hand, I looked out into the crowd, seeing all of the professors that had pushed me to get this degree, I saw my sister, who was following in my footsteps, and I saw my parents, looking as proud as ever, and I knew that the choice that they made 10 years ago was the right one. There were so many moments when I was younger that I hated them for homeschooling me, making me into the weird kid, the social outcast, but standing there on that stage during graduation, I knew that this was the path that I was meant to follow.
