I think living in precarious circumstances must be like that. Whether it's economic chaos, familial chaos, etc. -- you learn to prioritize flexibility, rolling with the punches (perhaps literally), because that's what you need to do to survive.
And even when your situation stabilizes, you're unsteady for a long time -- you feel like you're going to fall down. Because the skills you developed, those critical flexibility skills, aren't the ones you most urgently need now. On stable ground, you get to / need to learn how to build structures that can stretch tall, with the right foundations and supports. It must be frustrating, must feel like you're starting over from scratch, learning how to walk again, the way a child does. It must feel like wasted effort.
But even if you're not in immediate crisis anymore, in the long run, I think those flexibility skills will likely come in handy once again. They'll let you build structures far more resilient than the average person might even dream of. The kind that sway in the storms, rather than cracking.