lessons from a menace

I'm a smart girl.
I have smart friends.
Educated, well read, lots of life experiences
And yet sometimes, just sometimes, we fall short.
Sometimes we just don't know what to do.

And that just frustrates the hell out of us smart girls.

I saw this cartoon on Facebook today and all I could think of was how I've felt that way more than once in my grown up life. I'm sure my kids have felt that way and surely that was the intended thought behind the cartoon but it rang true for me.

It brought to mind a conversation I had with a dear friend months ago. We were both lamenting different frustrations and circumstances we were clumsily maneuvering in our lives. My lightbulb went off. Why on earth would we know how to do this right or get through this without missteps? We've never been here before. We've never gotten over this hurdle before. We're still learning!

All this to say-life is messy and challenging and generally less than graceful. Our task is to persevere and keep walking forward. It won't always come easy. We will often feel like we don't know what to do next. I tend to think I should know this already-I should know the answers, the path, the plan. But I’m learning that it takes humility to realize what Dennis the Menace was saying all this time…

"I don’t know HOW to act this age.
I’ve never BEEN this age before!"

Cutting myself some slack…McGee