When someone asked me yesterday about my favorite color, I suddenly felt like a character in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, expecting to be launched off a bridge any moment, because I had one, then another answer.

Typically my favorite color is green, followed closely by blue. But I know favorite things with me are changeable according to my mood and where I am in my life.

And so it is with colors. Green has always been my go to, because it represents life and renewal and growth and I’ve always gravitated to it. But blue, with its connection to the open sky and water, is a close second favorite. Both appeal to me because of the way the colors make me feel.

But when someone asked, I said green then immediately said, “well, no, maybe its white.”

I wish I could fully explain why that drastic change came to me. Maybe I’ve been thinking about things like clearing slates, about pure intentions and even about snow. I can’t be sure, but in the moment, that’s what came to me.

As I’ve grown older, many of my favorites have changed. Certainly my favorite food has changed as my palate has grown and adjusted. Hot dogs used to be a favorite when I was much younger. Now I rarely, if ever, eat meat at all. Fruit was not always a favorite, I was more of a vegetable girl, but in recent years, fruit is the sweet treat I crave rather than cookies or ice cream.

Once upon a time, I could drink three 12-ounce Cokes a day, but I can’t remember the last time I had more than a sip of a soft drink now.

My favorite music has most assuredly changed. As a teenage girl, I loved the heartbreaking love songs along with the rowdy, bouncy dance tunes. I still enjoy a hopping song to shout out in the Jeep when the top is down, but I also find more and more I’m playing Bobby Darin songs interspersed with, gasp, Taylor Swift. Don’t judge.

I’ve worn my hair short, by preference, for more than 30 years, but I’m suddenly growing it out, feeling the call of long strands one more time. I know, I know, I’m reaching for a bit of youth in that, and I’m OK with that.

Two things have not changed. I still dress the same, in jeans or pants and sweaters or dress shirts. I’m not a girly girl dresser, and I hate carrying a purse. I manage a leather carryall for work, but otherwise my debit card and my license go in a pocket and that’s that.

The other favorite that remains the same is my favorite car, my Jeep Wrangler. Yes, in daydreams it will always be a Mercedes 350 SL, but that is nothing more than a dream, and the Wrangler has been my go to car from childhood.

I think favorites need to flex with us as we grow and change. I don’t think we need to lock in forever. As life polishes and shapes us like pebbles, we should be OK with the idea that we are going to change. Our thoughts, our likes and dislikes, our favorites in many things will shift.

As long as our core passions remain, including kindness, compassion, honesty and integrity, the surface favorite things can, and should, change. To give ourselves room to grow and experience new things — colors, tastes, adventures — that then change the way we see the world and what we like best is self care at its finest.

In thinking about all my favorites, I think I have to confess one more that has not changed. My favorite comedic movie is still the one I mentioned above, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I think I know the script from start to finish by heart by now, so it’s not easy to watch it with me because I can’t resist saying the lines, but if you’re at all a fan of British humor or you are interested in checking it out, that’s my recommendation.

Just be prepared, you will never look at rabbits the same way again.

Green…no, blue. Aaaauuugggh!!!

Elisabeth Strillacci covers crime, courts, Spencer, East Spencer and Kannapolis for the Salisbury Post.