Life/Work Balance

Today is one of those days when I am glad to be working from home. Yes, I work alone and this is sometimes isolating, but when I am ensconced in my dining room with the door closed and I can hear my family bustling around the house, I realise that my housebound office allows me to embrace the last few years of active parenting before my children set out to conquer the world on their own. This is a gift, even if sometimes it is a bit of a distraction. My teenagers know not to disturb me while I am working, but that doesn’t mean that Gabriel, my youngest at 14, doesn’t stick his head in to ask if I want a cup of tea or a snack (at the moment his life is one GIANT snack!). Christopher is away at University now, but he is the one who helps me when he is here—over Easter he spent hours and hours stamping my name on countless boxes of ACN literature. Clemmie has just turned 18 and today is her last day of school. It is this that has set me thinking about managing life and work and about how hard it is for most of us to get this just right. Clemmie will pitch up mid-afternoon and begin the complicated process of getting ready for her leavers’ ball this evening. We have made an appointment for me to fix her hair at 5:30 when I am done working and it is little things like this that I am able to do because I don’t have a long commute to and from work.

All of this makes me think about the things that I take for granted as a wife and mother. Everything that I have read and heard about since I began working for ACN serves as a constant reminder of just how lucky I am to be living and working where I am. Always my thoughts turn to those people in the world who can’t provide for their families or ensure any kind of safe environment for their children. My daughter is the same sort of age as the Nigerian girls who have been kidnapped by Boko Haram. This is a sobering thought and I pray that these girls and young women are freed quickly and that they be allowed to embrace the world and all it is to offer just like my daughter can.

Gloomy thoughts—it must be the rain and the grey skies! This week has been a bit of a whirlwind, but I have managed to get a fair bit done. The bad weather that the whole country seems to be experiencing over the past two days has meant that more people are glued to their computers, so I have been getting replies to emails much more quickly than usual! I have managed to arrange a couple of promising meetings with enthusiastic ACN supporters and to open dialogues with some more Catholic institutions in the North West. I am really beginning to feel like things are starting to take off now. I am going to start organising events and launch a couple of campaigns in schools and parishes in the coming weeks…the North West doesn’t know what’s coming!

Thanks for reading!  Caroline