When we were cleaning out Mom’s kitchen, I found a slip of carefully folded paper in one of the drawers. Along with tape and batteries and notepads and address booklets, she had kept something from when I was 7 years old. In second grade, they apparently gave my class placement and IQ tests, and my test results were good. So in her own handwriting, she had recorded those results and held onto them for 45 years.

 So I held onto that slip of paper, too. Mostly because it was in Mom’s handwriting, so lovely and so unlike my own. But honestly, I also kept it because it felt comforting. Probably the same reason Mom had written it down and tucked it away to begin with. It’s nice to think your children are smart. It’s nice to have neat little numbers that purport to be proof of that. It’s a comforting feeling, my child is intelligent. My child is a capable person. I am a capable person.

The truth is my own feelings of capability seem more elusive with each passing year. And I’m not even talking about an actual decline, although goodness knows that’s probably started, too. I’m just talking about the fact that the list of things I don’t know seems to be multiplying. The things I have yet to learn seem to be coming quicker every day.

In this past year alone, I’ve learned how different it feels to lose a second parent. I’ve learned that it’s possible to feel like an orphan even as a full-grown adult. I’ve learned what it’s like to watch my child make adult decisions that I never would have wanted for them. I’ve learned that I can navigate on my own in a big city; and also that I feel like a toddler when I do – look what I can do! I’ve learned that the desire to have someone be proud of me – look what you can do! – doesn’t go away no matter how old I get.

And that’s just a scratch-the-surface list. After years and years…and years…of learning and growing, I feel like I’ve made it to the starting line. So much is still ahead.

Depending on the day, I find that to be either terrifying or exhilarating. Exhilarating in that I had imagined there would be a stasis point here in middle-old age, a time when all things were fairly well known and not much came as a surprise. A time that would be settled and solid and devoid of big things left to learn. I imagined I would be seeking out lessons for myself, like learning watercolor painting or perhaps glassblowing.

And terrifying because none of that has been true, and I’m beginning to suspect that it never will be. I’m beginning to suspect that life itself will provide endless opportunities for adapting and learning and growing. Which is funny that I say “I’m BEGINNING to suspect…” because I apparently suspected that back when I wrote What Did You Learn? It’s the confirmation of those suspicions that’s really throwing me for a loop.

For right now, I’m trying to accept the lessons that lie before me. I’m trying to remember my framework that I discussed in Lesson Learned, I want to always learn love. And I’m trying to be grateful for these unexpected lessons. Trying to remember that God will grow me through these lessons if I stay close and listen to His voice. Trying to hang on. I might still want to try the glassblowing, though.