Throughout my life, I’ve always had the practices of homeschooling leading my education and development, and for me that has meant being able to savor the time I have as a youth to find out what I was born to do, and pursue it.

I don’t want to spend every minute building myself a pinpoint-perfect future. I want to live these days how they are, as the present. The world is only going to get as good as it is now. Tomorrow doesn’t hold any more possibilities than today.

This has been the hallmark of my educational, personal, artistic and general development for as long as I can remember. Ever since even my youngest years, homeschooling has cemented its place in my life as a pillar of experience, something that I have never drifted far from.

Homeschooling means taking your child’s education fully into your own hands, and although it comes in many different forms, and has its fair share of offshoots. It takes a lot of dedication and a lot of work to build up a foundation for a child’s education. It’s certainly not something that works for everyone.

But it does for me. It allows me to pursue things I am genuinely interested in with a passion and build my curriculum around my pursuits. It’s dynamic and personal. I feel comfortable in the midst of my education, something I hold dear.

With my parental guardians managing my education, I have a strong connection to my schooling. At times I even help build my courses and organize my work ethic. I am truly immersed in the routines I circle. Every day holds its own possibilities, and I am responsible for finding them.

One challenging aspect of being homeschooled is that I feel a sense of the difference between me and most kids my age. I’ve always felt distanced from the cultural practices of the mainstream schooling system and those who are in it, something that has been a burden at times. I can remember plenty of conversations about school when I’ve felt dumbfounded because I don’t understand the experiences others are talking about.

But that’s never really been a problem for me mostly because I tend to naturally gravitate towards people with a schooling experience similar to my own. I’ve experimented and looked into public schooling, and never has it clicked with me. I’ve never felt I fit into the standards of public schooling, I prefer more to have an experience tailored to me so I can explore and discover things I want to pursue with more dedication.

For instance, last year I had a course on pitching film concepts, and how to build a convincing pitch deck for a team. I’ve taken this knowledge another step forward, and now every time I start a project I think to myself, “How would I pitch this?” or, “How could I build a pitch deck around this idea?”

Homeschooling broadens my horizon and allows me to have more leeway in what I learn and how I learn it.

Throughout my life, I’ve gained a philosophy about these precious years upon the foundation of my homeschooling life. Youth is a time to find yourself, to find what you want to do. I don’t see youth as an introduction to adult life. I don’t think these years should just be put into building a pre-conditioned path into a conventional adult life. This time is not just practice for the future. — it’s a time to experiment and progress, to understand yourself.

It’s important for youth to have an array of possibilities at their command, and time to explore their passions, and homeschooling has given me that opportunity. Those years ahead of me can wait, now is a time where I have the freedom to pursue virtually anything in my scope of interest, and I don’t want to leave that possibility behind.

Homeschooling is a gateway for me into a world of possibilities, a palette of pursuits that paints the picture of my daily life. Nothing is outside of my reach, every doorway is open for me in these fleeting years.

And as these possibilities slip away as I move through the world, and these doors close, I want not to look back with regret for what I didn’t do, but pride for what I did do. This is a time to be remembered, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget what homeschooling has done for me.

Mickey Fontaine is a homeschooled youth and student who has lived on Vashon for about eight years. He enjoys art, fiction writing and the community of the island.