To Mom and Dad aka my best friends,
I'm leaving for college in a few days (insert mildly panicked screams here), and though this thought is terrifying, it is also equal parts exhilarating. This is a goal that I have worked tirelessly toward, but I could not have achieved it without your help. You have been my biggest supporters, and I think now is the best time to pen an epistle of thanks.
Thank you for teaching me how to express my ideas and arguments in a clear and cohesive manner. Thank you for teaching me that commas have a specific place that they belong in and are kinda important, that dangling modifiers are bad, and that flowery adjectives should be saved for fiction writing. Thank you for proof-reading countless drafts of papers and offering me feedback. Thank you for putting up with my run-on sentences when I was a young and naive ninth grader who badly needed to learn about grammar. Thank you for instilling in me a love for reading, a love for writing, a love for the world of fiction. You've done your job a little too well and made an English major out of me.
On the topic of school, thank you for being so supportive. Thank you for driving me to and from every practice, rehearsal, and study session. Thank you for being at every single tennis game, for listening to my hour long stories about my day, for taking my side and correcting me when I am wrong. It means the world to me to know that you will always be their, my biggest fans. It means the world to me that you have been so patient with me, that you have been so ready to dispense the perfect advice on any topic. What am I going to do without you in college?
Thank you for letting me be me. Thank you for listening to my eternal rambles about my latest passion. Thank you for taking an interest in my interests, for embracing me for all of my quirks, for being my biggest cheerleaders and advocates. Thank you for staying up too late to watch just one more episode on Netflix, for getting dessert, for going fishing, for the countless inside jokes. I really do believe that we've invented our own language by this point, and that is so special to me.
Thank you for putting up with my insanity. Thank you for your sacrifices. I know how hard that you both work to make our family as happy as we can be. I know that it hasn't always been easy, but I want you to know that I have always been grateful.
I wouldn't be where I am today without your help. You are the ones who have pushed me to be the best person I can be (gosh now I'm starting to sound cliche). You've been the ones that have patched me up every time I fell (figuratively and literally). I couldn't be prouder to say that I am your daughter, and I hope that I can be as smart and as kind and as patient and as loving and as compassionate as you are.
I love you so much.
