A Grand Adventure
After some serious soul-searching, many pro/con lists, and discussions with my husband, I decided to leave full-time work for my first-ever career break. Yesterday, I said my goodbyes to co-workers and clients, tied off loose ends, and deleted my workstation profile. Today I embark on a grand adventure.
Stepping outside my comfort zone into the unknown required a leap of faith. Generally, I cling to security, which would be why I have been consistently employed without any breaks for the last 19 years. Of course, the 19-year stretch included a lot of luck in a world where layoffs happen every day. By my age, a lot of women have had some type of break even while employed, including maternity and medical leaves. Though medical leave and maternity leave can hardly be called breaks, they still mark a point of departure from the everyday work world into a different life pattern.
During my 19 years of working, I switched careers four times without time for reflection and restoration between shifts. I moved from being a reporter to an advertising sales representative to a banker to a web developer/project manager without stopping to catch my breath. So many times I wanted to stop the clock and figure out what I love and how I want to spend my time. The clock does not stop and neither does life. I had to make a conscious decision, no matter how terrifying, to pause for myself.
I will admit that I shed many tears. I worried and still worry about money. I am afraid about losing my identity. As someone without other defining elements in my life such as children or a nonprofit cause, I resorted to the default of defining myself by what I do, by my job. I know I am more than my job. I am a whole person all by myself, but my self-perception has been so wrapped up in work for so long that I have a hard time seeing beyond that. Unraveling my work identity from the real me and rediscovering what I love to do with my time will be an essential aspect of this adventure.
Through the years, I have complained that I haven’t had the time and energy to write. This break primarily will be devoted to writing. Whether or I not I write anything worth reading is another thing. I am focusing on writing out my thoughts and feelings, dreams and possibilities, and ideas and plans as a way to dig deeper into what I want out of life. I don’t want to sleepwalk through my life. I want to move forward with purpose and live life deeply, and I hope to find meaningful work.
Along the way, I’ll be fighting distractions such as television, web surfing, house projects, and general laziness, an affliction from which I suffer in my downtime. Oh, and kittens! Kittens could be very distracting. My husband and I took in two stray female cats, one of whom was pregnant, and now we have three precious three-week old kittens. Also with the arrival of fall, I definitely won’t be distracted with yard work, but I can see myself getting wrapped up in the holidays (Mom already has plans for me to help her with holiday baking).
I plan to post frequently about this new life adventure. I suppose the purpose of this blog is evolving into a gardening of the soul rather than my yard, and I’ll be making some changes to reflect that evolution. I hope my adventure can help others who are considering making a radical change to find a better path. In the end, this could be a cautionary tale, a successful experiment, or something in between. Only time will tell, and for the first time in 19 years, my time is open for me to tailor as I see fit.
