This Friday, I’m heading out of town by myself, sans kids, for the first time in more than two years. I’m so excited - excited to see friends, excited for the kids to have a dad weekend (which is way more fun than a regular weekend), excited to have a little space. And I’m also nervous. Our family has grown so close these last few years. So many little routines and habits that are inflexible because there was no reason to be flexible.

I wonder how my various inflexibilities exist because I’ve simply never had a reason to stretch in those areas. Last weekend we went down to the park and Forrest tossed me a few softballs to pass the time. (Of course I hit every single one perfectly.) The next day, I was sore in muscles I didn’t even know I had. Now, not to brag, but my keeping-sane yoga routine means I’m pretty used to being sore all over, but something about swinging a baseball bat used motions completely foreign to my back. And shoulders. And hips. And my feet, somehow?

I’m not flexible in those areas because I never play baseball. I’m even less flexible when it comes to my sleep schedule, how I take my tea, my willingness to wear itchy sweaters, and the more problematic areas of meeting new people and learning to see things from other people’s points of view. It’s been awhile since I went to a cocktail party and chatted with other adults from all walks of life. And I find even the idea of it hard. And a little distasteful. Why go talk to some person I’m never going to see again when I could be cozed up on the couch with my dogs?

But I don’t want to become inflexible, viewing other people as obstacles to my comfort or preferred plans. I want to see them as they are - dynamic beings with full lives, interesting stories, and maybe an opinion or two that could stretch my own understanding of the world. People as things, that’s the beginning of sin, a wise woman once said. And my inflexibility is no excuse for seeing people as things.

So, I’m off to see another small part of the world this weekend, and I hope, as much as I will miss my kids and routines, that I can stretch just a little more each day and relearn how to be fully in the world again.