This Place of Malleability

I always hear the phrase "formative years"
and it bothers me. 
I get it, those years where you learn how to be a human
how to conform to whatever society you're born into
what is/isn't acceptable. Having small children really 
highlights the "rules" for our culture. Some of it 
I agree with, some of it I do not. 
I wonder about other children
growing up in other cultures, and what their "rules" are.
How those parents help shape their children.

They define formative years as the period
of social, emotional, and physical development.
I must be a child then
because I feel like I'm in my formative years right now. 
Or maybe we are always in this place of malleability.
The idea of the formative years as a stage in life that you pass through,
I don't agree with that. 

I hope I am always in this place, where I am constantly being shaped.
I want to be moldable, impermanent, ephemeral.
I want to keep learning, and growing, I want to dig deep
in my inner garden,
​to learn from all my experiences, be they happy or sad.
​To keep pace with my environment, to be conscious of how
things keep changing in the world (as they should)
so I will do my duty, and keep changing, learning, processing,
and redirecting myself. 

I am a different person than I was in March of 2020.
​(I am so grateful to be a different person than I was in March of 2020)
​I like myself a lot more. It took time, but I got there.
This sickness, this gift, I've been given the grace
​to put everything on pause.
Like a Monet, the further I step back and look at myself,
all the details, the picture has become something else entirely.
I love it.
(I'm not really comparing myself to a beautiful painting, but you get it)
I hope I can teach this to my children.
I hope I know how.​