I remember when I was first divorced. It was as if any spare time I had was gone. Between working, taking care of two small children, and trying to run a household, time was something precious and scarce. Eventually, I found a system, a rhythm of what worked best for my kids and me but my system was almost too good.
Once I got the system down, I found that much of my time was being spent feeling depressed, lonely, or just downright sorry for myself. Typically, my free time was on the weekends when the kids were with their father and while I enjoyed the break, I also felt a huge void. That was when it hit me that I needed to stop feeling the way I was feeling and do something to make life better, not just for me, but also for other people.
I began doing research to find a number of charitable organizations in the town where I lived. I found that we had a synergy home for unwed mothers, a food pantry for the needy, and a daycare center run on government funds. I started out slow by going through my closet to see what clothing items I had that might help the synergy home. Once I took items to them, I was so impressed that I asked how I could volunteer.
Before long, I found that on my down days, the days when I was so busy feeling bad for me, that I felt better and was much better off physically by doing kind things for other people. My point – we can all have our moments of feeling sad and defeated because of a divorce but the difference is what we do with the emotion. I could have easily continued to mope around, feeling as if the world owed me but what I discovered was many other people were in worse shape, actually needing me.
What to do With Larger Chunks of Alone Time