I know it's there, but I haven't found it yet...

"Challenges make life interesting, however, overcoming them is what makes life meaningful." - Mark Twain

I feel challenged right now. I feel challenged by life, cancer, grief, motherhood, marriage, friendship, family...all of it.  I feel like there must be a lesson in the challenges of the past few years, but I can't seem to see it.  I feel like I'm not learning the lesson and that is why the challenges keep coming because they are trying to teach me something. When I feel so overwhelmed as I do know, I like to sit back and try to evaluate what is going on.  What can I learn from this?

My Dad was one of the wisest men I knew.  He was my go-to-guy for advice.  Most of my life I thought it was my Dad's experience that made him wise, until one day (when I was 32 and he was 62) when I told him that I thought he was the smartest person I knew.  He chuckled and said that if he was wise it was because he "knew enough to know that he didn't know everything".  That really struck a chord with me.  I thought huh, maybe wisdom is knowing that you don't know all the lessons rather than how many lessons you know.

Cancer has taught me to look at things differently.  I don't wish away getting older anymore, I embrace it. Cancer has taught me that no matter how much you don't want to do something, sometimes you have to. Cancer has taught me that it can be cruel and take one of the people you love the very most away from you quickly. Cancer has taught me a lot of lessons and I thought I had a good grasp on all of them, but it apparently I'm not done learning.  This scare of the return of my cancer is happening to teach me something.  No matter what the outcome is here, there is a reason why this is happening. 

I wish that I could go to my Dad for advice, but I can't.  But I will remember that advice he gave me. I think I'm finally wise enough to know that I don't know what the lesson is.  I do know that cancer and I are going to not done being dance partners yet. But I feel fairly certain that as we spin around the dance floor, I will be learning some new moves.