The other morning, I injured myself. Not on purpose and not horribly bad, but injured nonetheless — enough to leave a lingering discomfort hours later.

It was a simple thing, really. I didn’t fall down a flight of stairs, I didn’t burn over half my body in a disastrous grease fire at breakfast, nor did I accidentally slice off my fingertip while chopping vegetables. I injured myself attempting to pull my nightgown over my head.

Sounds like something ripped straight from the script of a dimwitted sitcom, doesn’t it?

It started with a tiny audible cracking sound. Not like the snapping of a twig; more like the sound your big toe makes when you flex it. Right on the heels of the crack was the pain. The center of my upper back, just below my neck, was killing me. Not literally, but you get my drift.

I’m probably not that different from you. I eat right, for the most part (except for the occasional bowl of ice cream or can of Pringles – original, of course). I exercise (nope, coronavirus hasn’t robbed me of that pleasure). I even take a daily multivitamin (women’s 50+ formula). Despite my best efforts, nothing prepared me for the pain that came abruptly, without warning, triggered by the mundane task of taking off my clothes.

And so it goes with midlife.

Call it fate, call it karma, call it the hiccups of life. Some things in life are out of our hands. We’re well versed in the things in our lives that we feel we can control. Then, there are those things that pop up and leave us baffled, unprepared and questioning the universe, “Why, universe? What the f**k did I ever do to you?!?”

Stuff happens. You’ve been around long enough to know this fact. It’s how we handle the stuff that defines us. We can react to life’s little hiccups or we can respond to them.

React versus respond. There is a difference.

Aesop’s fable, the Tortoise and the Hare, comes immediately to mind.

When we react, it’s instantaneous. It’s an action that we don’t think about. Some might call it impulse. We react in the heat of the moment, on the spur of the moment, without a moment’s notice. Someone slams into the back of your car during rush hour traffic. You jump out of the car spewing profanity and ready to punch the driver in the throat. It’s the shoot-first-ask-questions-later action. Reacting is the Hare.

Then there’s responding, which is usually a slower, more deliberate action. Your conscious and subconscious are working in tandem. You’re considering your actions and taking into account the variables of a situation – what you’ll say, what you’ll do. That same someone slams into the back of your car during rush hour traffic. You get out of your car, check yourself for injuries, then go to the other driver. “Are you okay,” you ask. You’re concerned, and not just for your wellbeing. Turns out, you were hit by an elderly gentleman who just had a seizure. Your response didn’t make a bad situation worse. Responding is the Tortoise.

I say all of that to say this: Stuff happens, and I had to adapt to that stuff. I could have let the pain of a strained back dictate my mood for the next couple of days. I could walk around angry and grumpy, slam a door or two, be unpleasant to be around, and generally be a self-righteous bitch. I could have, but I didn’t. Each passing day is yet another day for life to throw hiccups our way. Those hiccups? Midlife is loaded with ’em.

Life as we know it right now is, uh, let’s call it, ‘interesting’ on its own – a pandemic, murderous wasps, social distancing, walking out of the house looking like I’m about to rob a bank – I don’t need to add to the flurry of this new normal. So, I respond.

Today, my back feels much better. I have range of motion again. I didn’t turn into a monstrous she-devil on a foul-mouthed rampage. And, quite frankly, I’m glad I didn’t. I have enough stuff on my midlife plate already.

What about you? Are you a reactor or a responder?