The Beginning of the End. . .

. . . the first of the lasts. However you want to say it, today our last daughter started her first day of her last year of high school. It is a day with mixed emotions: joy, pride, relief, disbelief. Time surely could not have traveled this fast. I distinctly remember a scared little 2-year-old Erin hugging her little purple stuffed Barney while seeing her older sister Lindsay off to Kindergarten. And just a few years later, Erin ran to be the first in line to go off with her new kindergarten teacher, unafraid because she had seen big sister do it and survive. Perhaps that is the advantage of being the second born: learning and watching what is just ahead for you. And Erin has done a good job of observing. She is ready for this Senior year of high school. She has been looking forward to it since her freshmen year, when sister Lindsay was a senior. Erin looks forward to having one fewer class than those lowly underclassmen, getting to go off campus for lunches, and leading her volleyball team to the goal of winning a CIF championship. Hopes are high, expectations higher, the whole year lays open before her. There is much to do in the nine months to come: homework, tests, college apps to send in, decisions to be made, practices, games, friends to hang out with, trips to take, and when it is all done, it will seem it just started.