Today, I sent my daughter off to her first day of senior year. This was the first time I was sad, really sad watching her go. Each grade before brought excitement and the unknown, like fresh new growth. Each year was marked by a photo and a ritual of a first, knowing there would be another just like it the following year with just a grade changed on the prop. Laughing at how much she changed, how tall she had gotten, how long her hair was now.

This year, however, the ritual was one of lasts. It was the last first day in high school, the last first day she would be here with me not belonging to the world yet. The last first day I knew she had only one home on this planet, ours. Next year would be full of firsts again, but in a new environment with new rules and norms, but for today, all I could see was lasts.

I then thought about all my lasts this year firsts recently. How life had shaken me out of a long time job and escorted me into another, where I had to make new relationships, learn new ways of doing things and start all over at a new place with a much longer commute. I thought of how midlife had given me firsts within my own skin. How the roles I have played for so long no longer needed a leading character, how the reflection in the mirror has started to betray me. How all the worry, insecurities and old wounds I had been carrying around only obscured my new view and became a troublesome 3 piece luggage set on a trip that only allowed a carry on.

The aches I felt watching my daughter go, were also aches of longing for the way it has been. I was no longer a master of this part of my life, I was now a novice in a new part. I realized how many layers of to do lists and birthday parties and pick up lines I had masterfully woven through. How, on this end, I had smugly judged others who were newer in their role and had not yet figured out what, to a seasoned mom, was just sooo obvious. How my comfort and experience had in some way made me arrogant and lazy. I had succeeded in playing the role, yet In trying so desperately to look like I had it all together and figured out, I had forgotten about the absolute precious gift I was looking at, why I was there and that it would one day be over.

But here is where I found myself today: in the presence of a first last and a last first.

When she pulled away, I realized that I am now, once again, a novice. I have decided I am going to welcome it as scary as it may be. My skills and experience had not prepared me for today, yet deep down, I know I need no preparation, I only need courage, which being a novice takes a lot of. I realized today that this is part of life. It is a gift for me to be reminded that nothing in life is truly stable and guaranteed not to change. It was a great reminder that for all my mastery, if I am unable to become a novice again I am at risk of becoming hard, stagnant and arrogant. Being a novice is never a last first or a first last, but it embodies the best of what we have to offer as humans: curiosity, vulnerability, excitement and freshness with a healthy dose of humility. Learning to be a novice again will also let me view the first lasts and the last firsts as just markers to more learning and growth.

I realized that the tears I shed were not for her, but for me. I was comfortable, we were settled and safe and now the boat must go back out on the choppy water again and I must learn to sail again. As much as I would rather stay on shore and embellish tales of adventure, the harbor is not what makes a sailor great or has ever made a great sailor. It keeps the boat safe. She happily rowed away from me today. Within the lesson of the first last and the last first, I realized that as a novice, I must return to the boat and relearn how to row .