For the past seven years I’ve been a work at home mom. I love the flexibility it offers since I can start and stop any time I please, take vacations, and not have a boss breathing down my neck. Well, to be honest, I’m the worst boss ever. I tend to push myself too hard and since I do work from home, all I think about when I’m at home is work. Whether I’m online writing articles, counseling a client, doing a movie review, or cooking and cleaning when I’m offline, I always tend to work.
Since my kids are older they aren’t home as often anymore. Between friends, college, friends, work, friends (did I mention friends?), they’re often gone from sunup to sundown. At first I enjoyed all this personal quiet time. I could get up in the morning and jump right into my work without having to referee arguments or find someone’s lost shoe. That got old fast though. All of this peace and quiet started driving me insane.
I’m usually proactive, but for a few days I moped around feeling lonely and bored. Sure, I have a workload that would crush Atlas’s back, but there’s more to life than working. Since nobody was available to chat with on the phone, so I could whine about my lonely-single-mom-syndrome, I got online and looked for volunteer work.
This is something I’ve wanted to do for decades and now was the right time. I went to the site Volunteer Center of Southern Arizona, typed in my zip code and up popped hundreds of opportunities. Until the other day I didn’t realize how popular volunteering was, or how badly it’s needed. I had to narrow my choices down to a 5-mile radius since I take public transportation (my way of helping the Green movement and also saving money) and chose some areas I enjoyed working with—-animals and people who are ill.
It took a few hours before I narrowed it down to the two that seemed to suit me best. One is for a no-kill cat shelter and the other is for a hospice. I have two days a week I can contribute. Right now it’s in the preliminary stages and I’m not sure which one will work out best, but I can say for certain that I already feel eager and at peace.
Instead of sitting home alone I can make a difference in my community and in the lives of others. I’ll meet new people, socialize, learn new skills, and will feel better about my life in general.
Life should be lived, not watched from the sidelines. Volunteering will allow me the opportunity to participate and add another valuable facet to my life.