Flexible Rigor

In 2016 my New Year's Resolution was to be more flexible. I meant this both physically and mentally. To the first point - I was a ballerina for ten years and was only ever barely able to touch my toes. Forget the splits, which I did exactly once shortly before a back injury ended my ballet career forever. And to the second one, I can get a bit stuck in my routines. I wanted to work on it.

Of course then I got pregnant, and my daily yoga went out the window. First because I was too exhausted to do anything other than eat dinner after getting home from work. And then because I was too pregnant to move. I did touch my toes once before I quit yoga completely. But I also lost the ability to put on socks and shoes earlier in my pregnancy than most. Though in my defense, I got larger than most (and gave birth to a 10 lb 3 oz monster of a baby).

But pregnancy did force me to become more flexible mentally. As my body made demands on me I had to become more comfortable letting certain things go or find new ways to get them done. Having a newborn only amplified this. It's something I'm still working on, but I think I'm making progress.

The solution has actually been to rely even more on my routines. This difference has been to make those routines more modular. I break up longer tasks to their basic components and do what I can when I can. My morning routine used to be a non-negotiable hour from which any variation could throw off my entire day. Now I've managed to work it out so that I can get interrupted by a crying baby and feed him without really missing a beat. I had to sacrifice some sleep, but it results in a less stressful morning overall.

The other aspect of this is that I started a bullet journal. Which is a trendy pintrest thing that I totally scoffed at until Kevin's most recent business trip forced me to get even more organized. Basically it's a to-do list broken up by day, but you can also add notes and events. And it's flexible enough to handle a shifting schedule. If I can't do something, I move it to the next day (or the next week). It's helping me figure out what I'm actually capable of on any given day and celebrate the small victories.

This newfound flexibility has been absolutely crucial in the past few months. The thing about babies is that no matter how hard you try to get them on a set schedule, they will thwart you. As soon as a routine develops, something happen to throw it off. And all you can do is roll with it. I'm still working on this. A lack of flexibility on my part is probably why it took me so long to get back into the world. But as Gavin gets older (and when we add a second kid to the mix) I'll really have no choice but to let things go. All I can do is prepare as much as possible at my own pace.