Flexibility

When you are an adolescent being flexible means that you are limber. Like a gymnast. Like the splits kind of flexible. In your twenties you are flexible in a way that keeps you at work late and on weekends. You are flexible in your social life. Always ready and willing to have fun. Even on week nights.

In your thirties you are flexible in your ability to fit in yet one more school or church function. You are able to volunteer professionally. Practically full time. You are flexible when your child is sick and you need to change plans on a dime. You are flexible when your spouse works overtime.

And then your forties happen. No amount of stretching will keep you in gymnast form. You work diligently and whole heartedly. Your employer will feel your loyalty. But you will be home to have dinner with the family. You still are able to have fun if you are home and in your pajamas by 8 p.m. on weeknights and 10 p.m. on the weekends. You are flexible enough to say no.

I would change none of my decades. They have all served me well. They are the fiber of what makes me who I am. And I am still flexible. Not in the splits kind of way, but in the way that makes me recognize what is most important. I am flexible in the drop everything and enjoy this very moment kind of way. This is by far my favorite kind of flexible.