Being Flexible

Yesterday I posed to Instagram:  "All these thoughts and ideas... what I knew I’d get done tonight... but nah. None of it happened. I had planned to cook a nice vegan meal with fresh veggies... nah, ordered Japanese. Planned on helping Ava start a blog... nah, gave her colored pencils and a journal instead. Planned on bills, laundry, and rest... nah, instead we ended up with a nose bleed that almost never stopped. I was covered in my daughter’s blood and tears. It’s over now, we are clean, I’m sipping a hot cup of kava tea, the kids are playing, and it’s all over... the point of this is, as adults we have to learn to be flexible. And here I am, trying to figure out if I did something right, trying to be flexible as a freaking straw, and still full of doubt. I’m an adult who freaks out when there’s no order, when there’s chaos, and when we have to eat Japanese. Omg. True story. Life isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty amazing... ever changing, chaotic, consuming, emotional, and amazing." 

This post made me interested in exploring flexibility and an adult's ability to freely change midstream.  Being the mother of three, you would think I was pretty flexible but I'm not. I adhere to routine.  Routine is good, in fact, for children, routine and structure is recommended... but to me, in this case, I'm the variable, I have to adapt to change to fit in to their moods, whims, and wants. Even within this structure - I have to be flexible.  



So what is routine? Routine is a series of habits.  Good routines for me include: wake-up, coffee, run, breakfast, work, swim, eat lunch, work, grab a snack, get the kids, cook dinner, shower, sleep. I have rituals tossed in (a ritual is a routine with assigned meaning): morning musings / meditation and nightly tea or wine. Paradoxically, because I have a good routine, I should never have to make a decision - but wait - I have too... because flip it all, I have three variables that are constantly changing myself.  And let's be honest here... I'm a mother. I live in their world. So I have to be the one who is uberflexible. Which means sometimes I miss that run, I miss that breakfast, I do everything during work hours, I miss cooking dinner, and I miss that shower. The ritual even loses meaning when I decide I want that second glass of wine or I forgo morning musings (what I call my meditation) to sleep 15 extra minutes. 

The point I want to make here is that many of us are trying to be perfect in an unperfect setup. Things change, we change, but we have to adapt. It's okay to be upset that something did not go as planned, it gives you the opportunity to make it different, count blessings, and still express gratitude - things work out anyway, right? Anymore, hardly anything goes as planned for me. I just have to learn to roll with the punches; that's the definition of being a mother.  And for that I'm grateful!