RECONFIGURING

Reconfiguring.

That's what the pleasant GPS voice said as I left the route she had selected for me. "Reconfiguring." After a pause, she began giving directions again, based on my current position, a route that essentially was a U-turn. It would have been easy to listen to her and go back. But I had seen the wreck on the interstate and wanted no part of that mess. So I let her repeat herself through half a dozen intersections until finally she reconfigured and found a new route.

Reconfiguring.

Rick and I got married very young. Contrary to popular rumors, we didn't start our family for another six years. The plan was to be empty nesters before we were 50 years old, to have plenty of years left to be a couple. In the meantime we centered our lives around raising our children. People ask what your hobbies are when you are an actively involved parent and the answer is a variant of, "Well, I have two boys in scouts, and a girl in 4-H and karate, and we have youth group on Wednesday nights and..."

Fast forward to 2019 and our lives have done a U-turn. My husband and I made some major changes to our diet in May, cutting out most sugars and simple carbs. We've lost a fair bit of weight, the equivalent of a small person between the two of us. And we've lost our active parenting status as our youngest son moved into his own home in June and our daughter left for college in August. Suddenly, our four bedroom home has a lot of space that isn't being actively used. So for the first time ever, we have a guest bedroom.  And now we are no longer scheduling all of our time off around our children's activities. In fact, we took a real vacation, just the two of us and our dog for over two weeks.

Reconfiguring.

I like to pick out a word at the close of every year, a focus for the upcoming year, a theme for my goals. As 2019 closed, I examined my life and found a lot of space isn't being actively used. I'm going into the start of a new decade and most of the motivations that guided my decisions for the last 23 years no longer apply. It's time for a new route.

Reconfiguring indeed.