She voted for the first time on Tuesday, and today she graduates. Soon she will be out of the house.

She has been a guest poster here (at age six) and her thoughts have appeared here by proxy concerning various political matters such as the price of John Edwards’s haircut. A conversation I had with her about the upcoming election of Barack Obama or John McCain led to years of distortions of my views on the Internet, but I would say the same things to her again.

Moving past politics, she and her brother Matthew have good taste in movies and a form of perfect musical pitch. I memorialized her first visit from the tooth fairy and some of the darndest things she has said. As a five-year-old she thought stupid was a bad word and she still curses rarely, at least around me, and any curses are very mild. I’ve written about her interactions with my dad and a goodbye to the home where she took her first steps.

An incident with Lauren led to one of the greatest insights I have ever had about the human mind and the gratitude we should feel for this life.

I know she is about to move on to “the life that’s waiting out there” — and I am grateful for every day I still have with her. And I am very proud of her, and I know I always will be.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]