So Long, Farewell

I'm involved in a love-hate relationship with something called Mock Trial. This thing called Mock Trial is far too complicated for me to go into at the late hour that I find myself writing this post, so let's just say it's an intellectual contact sport, and leave it at that.

Tonight I had all my fellow Mock Trialers over, as I do on occasion, but tonight was different. I joined the team as a freshman, and since that time I have been privileged to work with the five greatest high-schoolers in the whole wide world. There was only one problem with this set-up. They were a year older. So each year the thought crossed my mind that at some point they would graduate and leave me in high school all alone.

I quickly tried to banish the thought.

Tonight, however, it escaped banishment and came back to the forefront of my mind. I'm sure that this had nothing to do with the fact that we were having a party to send them off into the big, scary, college world.

So tonight we said goodbye. Hopefully not forever, of course, but we said goodbye. And I hate goodbyes. I hate change. I hate not having them to lean on and to talk to and to cry with.

But, I love the lessons they taught me. I love the way they've changed me, made me stronger. And I love the possibilities that lie ahead.

So, let us not say goodbye, but as the French have it, Au Revoir!

And yes, that does mean that I am two for two on the Jane Austen references in these blog posts. Get used to it.