Remember how every September when we started a new school
year everyone seemed so much older than they did in the summer? There’d always
be a couple of new kids, someone would have changed their haircut, discovered a
new band, at least 3 people would claim to have had a romance with someone too
far away to fact check and everyone would somehow be just a tiny bit different,
a tiny bit cooler.
Well I just took the adult version of a summer break, and
there are some real similarities.
It was more than 6 months ago that I decided that I
needed to take some time away from my real life to think about what I wanted to
do next. I wanted to be sure I was making active decisions rather than just taking
the obvious next step in my career. It
seemed to make sense to do this just after Christmas, both to extend the time I
spent away from my daily routine, and to ensure I spent some quality time with
my husband before disappearing off to another continent without him.
So on December 21st I ‘broke up’ for
Christmas, and last Monday the 8th February I returned to work.
Nearly exactly 7 weeks, so have I changed in that time?
Well one thing certainly has, I noticed about 3 weeks in that I was thinking less. And by this I mean that my mind was focused on what was in front of me, what was happening in that moment. And that felt calming. The most fundamental difference was that I stopped thinking about work in
the shower, or when I was walking the dog (it didn’t hurt that we didn’t take
the dog to India and I only had access to 1 hot shower the whole trip!). I’ve
always known that my breakthroughs on gritty problems don’t tend to happen in
front of a computer, but instead when I’m pondering them in a relaxed
environment, so I suppose that at some point I'd conciously or not given myself permission to give over portions of my home time to thinking about work. I know I've cheerfully practiced talks I'm giving, or mentally reworded documents whilst washing my hair loads over the last few years but until I stopped I don’t think I’d realised was the extent to which I’d annexed almost all of my ‘relaxing’
times to mentally review work stuff.
Now that I have noticed it. I realise that when I'm not thinking about work, I'm thinking about things I 'ought' to be doing with my time, and my money. And when I'm not doing this I'm writing lists of people I owe visits to or presents I need to buy. It's exhausting all this thinking and it's stopped me from noticing what's going on around me.
When I planned my leave I did an
exhaustive handover and I am so glad I did. It meant I knew that there was nothing I could do about work while I was
away – and this freed up my brain to do other stuff – I designed chutney
labels, doodled a new tattoo design, and was actually fully present when seeing some of the gorgeous views that India had to offer. I actually saw what was in front of me, it was weird, as if I suddenly had much thinner skin. It's like my lists and my thinking are a pair of thick winter gloves I'd gotten so used to I'd forgotten I was wearing them. And now that I've taken them off I can feel EVERYTHING. It's amazing.
I’d set myself the task of thinking about my future whilst I was away. I think I’d imagined
that this would be a tactical piece of work – plotting a course that would
allow me to achieve something notable. And because I wasn't drowning in thoughts it wasn’t like that at all.
Both the time I spent at home over Christmas, and my time
in India freed me up to remember some pretty fundamental things about myself. Like what it is I enjoy, and
what it is I value. And it turns out those things are pretty basic – I like to
cook, I like to write, I like curling up in a comfy chair with a good book,
looking out of train windows at the view, spending time outdoors, and being
with people I love and trust in small groups and intimate settings. I love my
dog, and my husband and my home, and I love on occasion being somewhere as
different from that as possible.
And having these things is really possible for me, easy in
fact. I don’t need a 5 year plan, a strategy or tactics. All I need is to be
present in my own life – so I notice how bloody lucky I am. So deciding what to
do next has become less about my career and more about my life – which is
actually pretty amazing.
So I’m back at work now, with a month to go till I leave
for good and when I look around me at new work opportunities I realise that
having this new perspective has helped me make decisions about work that I
never would have been brave enough to before. It’s still really important to me
that what I do is meaningful, but commiting only to what is achievable within a (healthly) working week
is important too, as is the opportunity to work closely alongside people as
part of a larger team. And money – well as long as I can pay my mortgage money
really isn’t important – after all walking the dog with a friend is free!
So I haven’t come back to school with a new haircut, I
haven’t discovered a new band, or had a ficticious relationship with someone in
a band while I was away. But I am subtly different, a little calmer, a little
more focused on what’ll make me happy. A bit cooler perhaps – and really
excited about 2016!
 |
| Me but a little bit more relaxed |
Just because I'm leaving Contact a Family doesn't mean the fundraising is stopping. It's not. But there is a big final event I'd like to invite you to.
Join us at Shoreditch House on 22nd February, 7pm – 10pm for our
CLOTHES SWAP PARTY. Situated on the rooftop ‘Secret Garden’ you will have the
chance to walk away with a brand new wardrobe, have a fantastic evening and
raise vital funds for Contact a Family supporting disabled children and their
families.
All you need to do is buy a ticket and bring 2-6 pieces of
clothing you would like to swap. We’ll value and sort your stuff & give you tokens to
spend on new (to you) clothing. Every guest will also get a goody bag full of
treats from our sponsors.
Tickets are £15 and you can get them here:
No comments:
Post a Comment