The Top Slice This year I turn 50. This doesn’t really bother me except that over the past few years, I have found myself transforming into a sandwich. Okay, maybe not an actual sandwich, but I have become one of the sandwich generation. For those that don’t know, the sandwich generation are people, often age 40 to 59, who have one or more parents aged 65+, and who are also caring for either a minor child or are financially assisting an adult child. Often, members of the sandwich generation are not only raising or financially assisting their children, but are…
Creating a true and deep sense of community while building a living-list of loving, close friends/family to call on when we are at the end of our rope as single mom’s and dad’s seems like an insurmountable obstacle at times. Right up there with our nagging loneliness and the constant struggle to put food on the table, asking-for-help is one of the frustrations we put at the top of our lists. We imagine “if only” we had a couple more close friends or if a nice family would “adopt” our little, wobbly, single-parent family or if we could finally get…
Some readers may notice that May was silent around here. I am sure I’m not the only one who struggled with a post-Pascha mailaise of some kind or other. For many of us the days of Bright Week seemed like a continuation of the struggle of Lent as “life” just never seems to relent for many of us. When David Dean, my co-leader here at the Living Water Blog, asked for help with topics and guest posts we had a wonderful and enthusiastic response from several in our Ancient Faith Single Parents Outreach group on Facebook. Today’s Guest Author is…
In my last post, I talked about how I wanted to focus more on prayer and charity for Lent. Did I ever get my wish. This Lent has been a particularly roller coaster time. Sorrows Lent began this year with the news that one of my cousins had successfully made a harrowing escape from Ukraine where he had been teaching English, and was safe, for the moment, in Poland. The whole family breathed a collective sigh of relief and offered various prayers of thanksgiving. Only a few days later, his mother died, and we were taken from the highs of…
This past week the children and I commented that “suddenly” we find ourselves nearer the end of Lent than the beginning. All the one-day-at-a-times and one-prayer-at-a-times have strung together several weeks of “good struggle” and here we are, prepared or not, approaching Palm Sunday and another Pascha. Whether this Lent has been deeply challenging or a mostly-missed season for you, we single parents have been juggling the gratitude-to-complaint continuum right along with you’all! From car breakdowns to illnesses, bills piling up and job changes, family and ex conflict struggles and new levels of forgiveness Lent never fails to challenge us…
The struggle is real. For every one of us during Lent—single parent or not. And yet for us single moms and single dads there are nuanced layers that sometimes threaten to swamp us with otherness. Our marathon isn’t unique—we struggle with the same passions and temptations as everyone. Yet, when we go home to our children after work the partner-less, half-empty house seems to point at our failures in an unavoidable way. Scarlet letter anyone? Every single mom and single dad I’ve spoken with longs to be seen while striving to be invisible at the exactly the same time. Of…
Here it is again, looming over us like a giant behemoth. Great Lent. Every year I see memes and cartoons about Lent sneaking up on us almost as if to intentionally spoil our joy. And to be honest, some days it does feel like that. But the longer I am Orthodox, the more I appreciate what Lent both teaches us and allows us to do, namely take the focus off of self. As much as I appreciate Lent, I do find myself filled with anxiety. What will I eat? Will my son participate with me now that he’s a teenager?…
When you’re a single parent, you often get used to the idea of having to do everything yourself. You become a paragon of the rugged individualist with a do-it-yourself mentality. A lot can be said for that lifestyle, especially when it’s lived within a like-minded community. The trick to living that lifestyle, though, is knowing when you can do it yourself, and when to ask for help. Too often, single parents forget that second step. I know I am especially guilty of forgetting. For some of us it’s a matter of pride. For others, we don’t want to be a…
The worries we carry for our children are almost too numerous to count. Time with the other parent I watch as their car drives off. My child waves madly out the window, big smile on their face. I smile and wave back, hiding the tears that threaten to fall. It’s been months since my ex chose to actually use their visitation rights, but for some reason they’ve shown up this time. As the car disappears down the street, silence settles around me, and with it comes worry. Our children’s experiences at school and with their friends My child is no…
The wisest way to proceed in life, I’ve often been advised, is to go slowly. Don’t make impulsive decisions. Don’t respond to emails immediately. Set down that phone and PRAY before you reply to a text. And. Attend services every chance you get. If that’s the only advise I ever receive from my confessor I’d be well counseled and just as “falling short” as ever! It seems that I’m always behind, rushing to catch up and never, ever the calm, collected, prayerfully peaceful individual I daily ask God to create in me. This New Year is no exception and I…
