When thinking about this question, my mind begins to scatter in a million different directions. My biggest thematic challenges of my life? My biggest challenges as a Woman? My biggest challenges as a Teacher? As a Human? As a Widow? Day to day struggles? As a Mom? My internal struggles?

This is the point at which my ADHD son would say, “Sure Mom, keep telling yourself you don’t have ADHD.” *wink*

I’ve been told I am an overthinker since I was a toddler. Always wanting to understand every avenue, every nuance of a situation. I always thought it was just the way my brain worked. I would overthink a question in school, on a test, to a point where I would be tied in knots, having no idea how to answer the question, because I saw the nuanced possibility of truth in every possible multiple choice response. 

What I didn’t realize is that this was rooted in deep Fear. The fear of being “wrong.”

This fear has made life difficult in so many ways. The fear of being wrong, of doing the wrong thing, of making the wrong choices, has caused me to spin my wheels at so many points in my life. I used to mistakenly have the idea that if I did the “right” things, made the “right” choices, was the best human I could be, good things would happen and that Life, the Universe, God, would reward me. As long as my life continued to be blessed with love and forward movement, I *must* be choosing the “right path.”

And then my world imploded. My husband died, and my world went dark. I couldn’t figure out what I did “wrong” to warrant this curse upon my life, upon my childrens’ lives. As an overthinker who had the mistaken idea that we reap what we sow, that God will protect me as long as I do good, that “all things happen for a reason,” not only was Life as I knew it over in one unexpected last breath, but the belief system that I had built my entire 51 year life upon was also dead. How could such a thing happen to one of the best men on Earth? How could he be taken away from us? How could our happy family be fractured in one fell swoop, when we had done nothing to “deserve it?”

My biggest challenge..of my Life, of Widowhood, of Womanhood, of Motherhood, has undoubtedly been coming awake to the Truth.

That Life is a full contact sport (as my wonderful therapist puts it.)

That Life is HARD. We don’t get what we “deserve.” In fact, the word “deserve” in an of itself is tainted. Who is to determine what we deserve? Good or bad? And to build a false ideaology that “we get what we deserve” is preposterous in the extreme.

That there are no “right” or “wrong” decisions…only choices and the consequences of those choices, and that we also have to live with the consequences of others’ choices at times.

That God does not give out merits or demerits in the form of blessings or punishments. God just is, and we have the free will to do what we can with what we have.

That pain and suffering comes to all. No one gets out alive or unscathed.

That sometimes there are no reasons. Things happen. What we do with the shattered pieces is also up to us. There is no right or wrong way to pick up and put those pieces back together. Beautiful Mosaics all.

That unlike school, Life is not a test that you pass or fail. Life is a Dance, and even the pauses, limbs on the floor sprawled in agony, is a part of that Dance.

So, my biggest challenges?

Accepting Life as it is, not as I project it “should” be, not as I wish it “would” be.

Trusting myself.

Honoring my mistakes.

Living passionately within my choices.

And learning to love who I am in all my imperfections and humanness within this random Universe that I have been sent to inhabit.