I’m still nursing some injuries and working from home when I can (and this morning, I can).  Last night I was chilled, so I put on a men’s long-sleeved t-shirt as a pajama top.  It worked out great for sleeping, but as I went about my morning routine, I found that the too-long sleeves were getting in the way.  I tried pushing them up, and then I tried rolling them up, but the end result was that no matter how I pushed and rolled, the sleeves kept creeping back down over my hands and getting in the way.

The solution was simple – change shirts. It’s warmer this morning, so I put on a short-sleeved shirt. When I finally changed shirts, I wondered why I had tolerated the pushing and rolling for so long.  Now I can type without annoyance.  I can staple papers without pushing my cuff out of the way.  I can pet the dog without the fabric getting in the way.  It took about 15 seconds to locate and change the shirt.

I’ve spent a lot of my life pushing back metaphorical “sleeves.”  I keep doing the same things that aren’t working over and over, thinking if I roll the sleeve instead of pushing it up, it will be different this time.  It seldom is.  In truth, if it works out, it’s probably because the shirt shrunk in the wash.

Changing your life isn’t as easy as changing your shirt.

My family is “changing shirts” right now.  I’m continuing to practice law, and my husband is going to continue to practice his professions, too, but the model is changing.  It’s a much bigger deal than changing shirts.  It’s a lot like replacing your wardrobe with a new look and giving the old stuff to charity.  We could go back to the way we used to do things, but why would we really want to?  We’d have to go back to pushing up our sleeves every 15 minutes.

When you don’t have to spend a lot of time pushing up your sleeves anymore, you have time to do other things, like crochet washcloths and go to Cedar Point.  You may have time to branch out into another business or to write blogs.  You may find time to find new interests and new friends.  Who’d have thought that simply changing a shirt could be such a big deal?

Just write what you know…

~Be~