I can remember the dreaded “Stay at Home Orders” being enforced when the pandemic first started two years ago. At the time I was a stay-at-home mom and I thought to myself, it won’t be that bad since I’m at home most of the time anyway. However, being naïve I thought the virus would run its course and we would be back at normal in no time. Boy was I wrong, something that I thought would last for a couple weeks turned into what felt like a year-long home confinement.
Being a stay-at-home mom, I was used to taking care of my family and doing the normal day to day chores. But when the pandemic hit, I found myself doing more than usual since my son was at home all day going to school online and my husband was spending more time at home. For me that meant more dishes to wash, more grocery store trips, more cooking, and the list goes on and on, so I am sure you get the picture. What I thought was going to be a breeze, turned into me having no time for myself while I took care of others and the household.
Then one day as I watched the news, there was a segment on self-care. While I had heard of self-care, I thought that was just a new buzz word that people were using. I never considered taking the steps to practice self-care for myself. However, as I watched the segment a light bulb went off in my head. From then on, I made a commitment to practice self-care for myself so that I could maintain some type of sanity and happiness during such a stressful time.
Since I always loved nature, I made regular walks at the park a part of my weekly self-care. Walking gave me time to think about what I really wanted to accomplish in life and what makes me happy. While thinking about the things that make me happy, I came to the realization that writing was something that I genuinely enjoy. From writing resumes to poetry, I have always loved writing. At that moment I decided that I would start back writing resumes as I had done in the past but being that the pandemic hit, there was not a high demand for resumes since jobs were being eliminated. And to be honest writing resumes did not make me happy as it once did. Then divine timing came into play, as I saw an opportunity to join a writing class that was being offered. I went back and forth wondering if this was something I wanted but how could I let this opportunity pass me by. Writing a book was something that I always wanted to do so I took a chance and signed up.
"...my self-care commitment led me to accomplish
my goal. "
In the class, I had the opportunity to share my writing with others and to get feedback on what I was writing. It only took one person to comment that my stories were good enough to be a book. That was the encouragement and motivation that I needed to keep going and before I knew it, I was on the way to writing my first book. After the course ended, I had a book ready to be edited and even though it took a year, my first book was finally published. I can’t express how empowered I felt once that day came. I was proud of myself for following my passion for writing and honoring my self-care commitment that led me to accomplish my goal.
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