Dear Ashley, circa October 2007: 

Let’s face it: geometry is hard. 

You will invest many frustrated hours on this arduous subject this school year. You’ll spend a lot of time doodling in your notebook when you should be working through problems, and a lot more time yelling in your head to no one in particular that if this theorem has already been proven, then why on earth should you have to prove it again? You’ll get a self-graded D on one of your unit tests and your mom will make you redo the chapter. In short, you’ll just get lazy, primarily because you won’t see how this subject will have any relevance to your future career as a dancer, world historian, graphic designer, novelist, or fashion designer (you haven’t decided which yet). 

Here’s the honest truth that your parents are unlikely to tell you: it won’t. 

But here’s another truth: most of the reason you will later come to excel academically will have to do with the work ethic and self-initiative that has been, at times painfully, instilled in you through your homeschooled life. You will notice how few of your public-schooled peers hold themselves to high standards, which will become especially clear when you get to college. You’ll be startled to learn that, on a grading scale, a C is generally considered “average”. There will be a slight moral culture shock, but mostly you’ll be floored by the general lack of caring, effort, respect, and preparedness. 

But obviously you have a ways to go between who you are now, a frustrated middle schooler who couldn’t care less about failing geometry, and that 4.0 college graduate. So I suggest you take a minute to reflect on why you’re glad you’ve been homeschooled all the way since preschool, a fact currently enabling you to be daydreaming when you ought to be figuring out the value of x. For one, you’re closer to your family than you doubtlessly otherwise would be; you’ll grow up to be good friends with both your parents and to keep close ties with your siblings. Your mom has no interest in assigning you busy work, which has saved you a lot of time. She has been able to incorporate many of your interests right into your curriculum: painting and figure drawing as art, ballet and figure skating as physical education, overseas travel during the school year as cultural enrichment, drama club as performing arts, book club as literature discussion. 

Homeschooling has allowed you to have a flexible schedule and take time off when needed, because you can always make it up later. It has enabled you to get ahead, like during the year you finished both second and third grades because you enjoyed your textbooks so much. As a homeschooler, you generally do well at interacting with adults and respecting authority—two very important life skills. Last, but not least, the fact that you’re a socially adept, well-adjusted, normal person who also happens to be homeschooled makes you instantly interesting to other people (and gives homeschooling a good name, too). 

Sometimes you wonder what public or private school would be like. You feel like you might be missing out on the “school experience”, complete with musicals, sports, schedules, fun class options, grades, and real homework. Later, you’ll come to thrive in the structure and accountability of college classes, where someone who isn’t your mother is evaluating your work and giving you constructive feedback. In retrospect, a program like CHESS would probably have done you a lot of good in this regard; it’s quite likely you wouldn’t be slacking off in geometry if you were in a classroom setting to learn it, indirectly competing with other students and striving, as you always do in groups, to be exceptional. 

But, since you didn’t have a local program like CHESS, you will find the structure you crave when you dual-enroll in a community college class. You’ll get so excited at the prospect of studying for a real test that you’ll earn a spot as a National Merit finalist due to your PSAT score. Once that score is validated by your later SAT showing, you’ll be offered a full scholarship, free laptop, and study abroad stipend to the college you end up graduating from. You know what that means? In the end: an A.A., a B.A., a B.S., an Italian minor, honors, and zero student debt, well-prepared to become a professional dancer who sells coffee and writes novels on the side and has aspirations to start her own dance company someday. 

I still haven’t told you how to get from here to there. There’s a lot you’ll have to learn the hard way, including that an entitlement attitude gets you nowhere in life and that God gives much grace to the humble, but sometimes He has to humble you first to show you that. I would simply encourage you to stick it out. Ultimately, geometry is just going to be an unpleasant blip on the road of your life, something that—if you’ll let it—will teach you the merits of working hard even if you can’t yet see the end result. No, your job will never require you to measure the angles of an obtuse triangle. But, as your uncle once pointed out, the job of math is to teach you how to think. And one of the jobs of school, largely, is to teach you how to work. The type of solid work ethic and self-initiative that you have the opportunity to develop as a homeschooler is what will take you the farthest in life. 

Furthermore, be grateful that you’ve been spared a lot of time, energy, peer pressure, immaturity, temptation, and drama by being homeschooled. Look for other ways to be social: join classes, clubs, or activities that interest you. Remember that magazine you started publishing for fun, giving you valuable experience with writing, editing, proofreading, layout design, content brainstorming and curation, and chasing after people who need to meet your deadlines? Remember those many novels, articles, and poems you’ve started writing? Remember the ballet performance videos from past years that you’ve watched religiously, allowing you to memorize steps and analyze artistry? Would you have had time to dabble in all that if you weren’t homeschooled—and do you doubt those will all come around to serve you in the future? 

When you find yourself wishing you were alternately educated, remembering that whatever you are missing out on is likely of far less import than what you are gaining. And take heart: geometry, too, shall pass. Once you pass it, that is. So get your nose back in your books and be heartened that you will, in fact, turn out alright in the end.

With love from your 2022 self,

Ashley