On Flexibility

I can touch my toes.  Usually.  That’s about as flexible as I’m likely to ever be.  But all yoga and tai chi and stretches aside, Mrs. B and I have had to make some changes since getting married and it’s required some flexibility on both our parts. 

We recently had to give up hopes for a San Francisco trip this summer and focus our money elsewhere.  Elsewhere means school.  Summer school has been thrust upon both of us this year.  As she finishes her 7 week crash course in chemistry, I will begin my 6-hour, 4 days a week regimen of my least favorite part of my major: figure drawing.   

And we can’t even suffer at the same time, no, we've got to tag team it so we never get to have a vacation together!  Sheesh!  So, in order to cover our summer tuitions, the beaches of sunny CA slip from our fingers. 

This trip was inspired by a rewards system we had set up for Mrs. B to kick her nasty coca-cola addiction.  Not that Coke is nasty, but if she went without it, she would experience migraine-like symptoms.  Dependency is no fun.  So, our incentive plan was born:

After 3 weeks cola-free:               I treat her to filet mignon. 

After 6 weeks cola-free:               $100 shopping spree

After 9 weeks cola-free:               Weekend trip to San Francisco!!!

But alas.  Bills and two tuition payments and car registration and rent and tires and a pile of other things quickly depleted our SF fund.  I feel bad for my wife, of whom I could not be prouder.  She went through weeks of hellish headaches and withdrawals and is rewarded with chem labs and exams.  But life goes on.  We adapt.

Indeed we do.  My plan, upon first entering the Visual Arts department at my school, was to work from home as a freelance illustrator and be a stay at home dad before the kid(s) start(s) school while my lovely wife pushes through med school and goes into oncological research. 

But things change, and we must be flexible.  Medicine no longer interests my wife, and the profession itself seems to be in a precarious place with insurance systems changing so dramatically.  She wants to be present in our kids' lives, as do I.  And I've realized the true “feast or famine” nature of freelance work and have begun seeking more steady work.  Never go into the arts for the money, but if you’ve already committed enough of your bachelor’s to it, try to find the most profitable career path within its parameters. 

Plans change, life changes you, so change with it, I say.  I’m not the man I was going into school, why on earth would my plans be the same as I leave?

How do you stay flexible with life?  How does it flex you?