Now that my children are basically grown I have quickly come to realize that there is one thing in my life I have in abundance: time.
For the past 10 years, as a single mother, I spent most of my time when I wasn’t at work, organizing, driving, and managing my children’s time. That didn’t leave a whole lot of time left over for my own activities. Now that they can do these things on their own, I find myself suddenly having entire days ahead of me with lots of white space on my normally cluttered and colorful calendar!
I could spend these days in bed, drinking coffee, and sulking because this is not the life I signed on for back on that day when I said for better or worse. But really, what would that accomplish?
One of the best ways to beat the crankiness is to infuse some joy into your life. Here are 10 ways I'm going to do that:
1. Make new friends. Find people that share your interests and find opportunities to meet these new folks out there in the world.
2. Go to your parish potluck dinner or host your own. Ask friends to bring their favorite dish to share.
3. Visit the local college for a lecture on Hamlet. Go to Shakespeare in the Park or other local events.
4. Attend a CatholicMatch event in your town or outside your town ...
5. Focus on one issue that is dear to your heart and find a way to use your sudden abundance of time to serve this purpose.
6. Volunteer at a conference. Recently, I used some of my extra time to volunteer for a conference to educate folks in Connecticut about the dangers of assisted suicide. This is something that has been on my radar since I lost a dear friend to cancer. (Information on this issue of assisted suicide can be found at The Family Institute of Connecticut or Euthanasia Prevention Coalition).
7. Take a stand. I was not comfortable taking a stand on important issues when my children were younger because I was insecure about coming under fire as a single parent. I wanted to stay under the radar as much as possible. I didn’t want my politics to give any stray family members an additional reason to dislike me. I always planned to get involved when my girls were older.
8. Speak the truth. Now that my girls are grown, I found myself a bit hesitant to want to step out into a world that has become so much more hostile to our faith. The concepts that have become reality in the past 10 years make it that much harder to live and speak the truth of our Catholic faith. But the longer I thought about it, the more I realized that if I didn’t do it, who would?
9. Offer help. God calls us to walk the narrow road and to share the truth of his Gospel with the world. If you have extra time on your hands, there are many good, solid organizations that could use your help! Most people can’t write a big check to help with cancer research but may be able to give two or three hours of their time to direct parking, make phone calls, or stamp envelopes.
10. Use your gifts. Never be afraid to use the gifts that God has given you, especially if you are in a circumstance where one of those gifts is time.
This week I invite you to try one of these action items. What would you add to the list? Leave me a comment below.
