I have been described by many a friend as "super flexible". M2 as well. No not in the sense where we can put our feet behind our heads or anything crazy like that, although I might try that today! More in the sense that we can go and do on a whim. We adjust quickly.
Or so it seems to the world!
Really that is all on the outside and mostly due to the lifestyle that we live. The Army lifestyle. It demands flexibility. That is one main reason we seem flexible another is that M2 and I are both a little flighty! We get going on one path and see a butterfly and say "ooh look" and head the other way without ever realizing it. My youngest, bless her heart, got a double whammy of flightiness. Seriously though, we will be driving over an hour away to go do something specific and on the drive I will google something else in that city on my phone and before you know it we think that new thing is what we went to the city for all along and it will not occur to us until we are home that our original intent for the trip was never reached!
On the inside though, deep down, I am not a flexible soul. I am a rigid homeschooling mom and I am a rigid disciplinarian. There is no flexibility within my realm of parenting. Mostly, I understand this to be a great thing. It means that my children have no doubts as to what is expected of them most the time. It also means that at the end of every school year I know my children received a solid education and I get to lay any homeschooling doubts aside. Yet, where there is goodness in all this there can also reside something not so good. Children with spirits that might be breaking. This is something I completely do not want.
I have exactly 8 1/2 weeks of curriculum left in this year. I have exactly 8 1/2 weeks before I send E off to summer camp. I so desperately want to finish before she leaves. We have pushed so hard this year and come great strides. Yet, she came to me heartbroken this morning and said she felt pressured to get "all this work" done and I could tell it was really causing her spirit to suffer. Unlike myself, I took a DEEP breath and decided to stretch out our weeks - who says we can't just finish after she gets home from camp. I attend a homeschool forum with other moms using the same curriculum, just with older kids, and most of them stretch this particular curriculum into 2 years anyways. It covers A LOT!
This is just a mild example of me hearing flexibility calling my name. But I think I must be in a season of learning flexibility because every day I am having to rethink a ton of ways I operate and become more flexible. I am having to give a lot up.
This brings we to the car situation! My, oh so wise, husband informed me that we will not be getting another car. We will learn to be (you guessed it) more flexible!
Let the adventures begin ...
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