How Does Anyone Manage It All Alone?

Living alone means it’s always your turn to take out the trash

I need groceries, but the plumber is coming . . . sometime. I want to write, but there’s something sticky on the kitchen floor. The laundry is piling up, but I really need to clean the bathroom. And what am I going to do about the junk piled up for the dump, the mess in the garage, and the gas fireplace that has started squealing—not in harmony with the neighbor’s rooster who is loitering in my front yard again?

When am I going to walk and do my exercises?

The to-do list never ends, and it never will. I forever struggle with limited time and energy and unlimited things to do. How do I get the chores done, enjoy the things that mean the most to me, and have any time to relax? If I die tomorrow, I would much rather have spent my last day playing the piano than dusting it. Yet it all needs doing.

One of the unrecognized challenges of living alone is the overload of work that falls to you and you alone, especially if you have a home and a yard to care for. In a rental, you can notify the landlord and hope they get around to it eventually. But the landlord isn’t going to buy your groceries, wash your clothes, water your plants, or pay your bills.

If you forgot to buy eggs (I did), there’s no one to ask, “If you’re going into town, could you pick up some eggs? And maybe something for dessert?” No, I either go back to the store or live without it. (We may all be doing without eggs soon, which could lead, horrors, to me doing without mayonnaise.)

Home chores are rarely shared equally among family members, but there’s a chance, if more than one person lives in a place, that the others will do some of it. At the least, they can wait for the plumber or the cable guy. They can follow you to the car repair place and give you a ride home. They can answer the phone if you’re in the shower. Maybe they’d even wave a dust rag around once in a while or unload the dishwasher.

When I was married and helping to raise my youngest stepson, I hired a maid service. I got tired of spending my days off from my newspaper job cleaning toilets and vacuuming while the husband watched football, and the boy did whatever boys do. We could afford it, so I made a phone call. I hate having other people messing with my stuff, but at least the house was clean.

I have a gardener now. My yard is huge. For my first few years alone, I picked up fallen branches, trimmed bushes, mowed, and weed-whacked. It killed me. There were times when I threw myself on the lawn and wept because my back hurt so much. I loved the feeling of accomplishment when I looked out my window at a lawn that I had mowed and trimmed. But I couldn’t do it anymore. I surrendered to arthritis and age.

I miss the exercise. I still trim bushes and tend my flowers, but George and his crew handle the lawns.

Who handles the dust inside? Apparently, no one.

Obsessive as I am, I keep a chart of my day’s activities. It has three columns: writing, music, and real life. The latter includes things like exercise, doctor’s appointments, and household chores. I try to balance the three. I bargain with myself. If I spend a half hour a day cleaning . . . If I take Thursday off and just do chores . . . If I turn the schedule upside down and start with a grocery run . . .

But where is time for fun? For rest? For doing nothing?

And what about those days when I’m distracted or don’t feel well? Yesterday, I spent all morning writing a song. Shortly after I finished, my friend Cheryl dropped in for a visit. Now I’m writing this at eight o’clock at night while a horrible mess of dishes awaits my attention because the song and the visit were more important to me than keeping a schedule.

Have you heard people say, “make time” for whatever they see as most important. Time is not something you can manufacture in the basement. We all get the same amount and no more. All we can do is prioritize, asking ourselves what has to be done right away and what can wait? If have a stroke tomorrow, what will we wish we had done?

I know I am privileged to have a house, food, clothing, friends, and work that I love. On this night when it is exceptionally cold, people are sleeping outside with nowhere to go. They’d love to have my problems.

What do you think? Is time management a problem for you, too, or am I just weird? How do we find a balance between all the “shoulds” and doing the things that mean the most to us?

P.S. I have been watching this Netflix sitcom called “Younger,” in which a 40-year-old woman pretends to be 26 in order to get a job in the age-phobic publishing world. It’s really fun. But I have noticed the characters do nothing but work, party, and sleep. When do they do their laundry, clean the apartment, get their teeth cleaned, etc? I guess in the fictional world, you can manufacture time.

Additional reading

Work Life Balance | Mental Health America

15 Habits to Achieve a Better Work-Life Balance in Today’s Fast-Paced World

The Ultimate Guide for a Better Work-Life Balance — Amy Shamblen Creative

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I will be reading at the Windfall Poetry Series on Feb. 19, 6 p.m., at the Eugene, OR downtown library and speaking and signing books at the Friends of the Library Oregon Author Fair at the Lebanon, OR senior center from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Feb. 22. If you’re in the area, come see me!

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How did I end up alone? My first marriage ended in divorce. My second husband died of Alzheimer’s after we had moved to the Oregon coast, far from family. I never had any kids, only dogs. Now I live by myself in a big house in the woods. You can read our story in my memoir, No Way Out of This: Loving a Partner with Alzheimer’s, available now at your favorite bookseller. Visit https://www.suelick.com for information on all of my books.