On my walk this afternoon after school, I came to the beach. The tide was lower, the sand was smooth, and very gentle waves were lapping the shore which was studded with slipper shells. Standing there, watching, I was reminded of my daughter who I heard crying the other night with her boyfriend. The next morning I asked how she was doing, that I had heard her upstairs.

“Is everything OK?”

“I got a 67 on an assignment.”

She’s in grad school working towards her MSW and is consistently an A student – so you can imagine her disappointment.

“What happened?”

“APA is what happened.”

“Aha.”

This particular professor apparently takes citing sources very correctly very seriously 🙂 My daughter got a bit complacent. We proceeded to have a discussion about the importance of failure, learning from mistakes, etc. She wasn’t happy. She “yeahed” me but was still upset, of course. I know she understands and won’t make that same mistake twice. I tell her how proud I am of her.

The next day she got word that an article she wrote via her internship was being published in a well-respected journal. Wow. Still in school and PUBLISHED!! How proud am I?

Standing at the shore watching the water; back and forth, ebb and flow. Just like life.