The End of a Beginning

I take my title from the intentionally inverted title of my most recent performance: a joint senior recital with Byron Wigfall. It is the last time I will get to sing on that stage, or perform in that theatre; the last time I will be a Woodside student performer; the last time I will have an audience in high school. Though I wished for this day to come, I begged for the school year to end, I cannot help but feel saddened at the end to my beginning.

Over the four years I've spent at Woodside, I have made countless friends, though only a few whom I will consider my friends for life. I have had so many experiences and have overcome so many changes and personal decisions. Through it all, two groups of people have stuck with me: my parents, who will always be there, and my friends, who in just a few short days will be scattered across the country. Many of these people I intend to see in the future, somehow. Many of them will never cross my path again.

I shed a tear for my lost friends and another for my future prospects. Life comes in pairs of opposites, bittersweet till the end. As my carefully tended relationships are forcefully rent, I am following my dream and my ambition into one of the greatest music schools in the country—Westminster Choir College.

I love my friends, from the bottom of my heart. Though I may not always show it—yeah, I know I can be a bit of a smart-ass jerk with no feelings sometimes—I will truly miss all of them more than anything else as I make the journey to college. From my oldest, closest companions—some of whom have been with me since day 1—to the people I've only known since the beginning of this semester, all of them will share a place in my memories and I—damnit I'm gonna cry—hope that they all keep in contact.

It's so very hard to say goodbye and I'm really tired of using clichés and idioms to describe what I'm feeling. So rather than saying something like, "this isn't goodbye" or whatever crap that is, I'm going to just say farewell the way it should be said.

Goodbye. I will love you always and forever.