I’ve been keeping a secret.
Actually, I haven’t been keeping it very well, because it’s been slowly leaking out among close family, friends and colleagues, like air from a balloon. But its getting closer, so its time to let it out before I burst.
I’ve had some ideas bubbling in my mind for a few years. Bits and pieces of stories, settings and characters – all ideas for writing that I have wanted to flesh out. Slowly, bit by bit, they’ve been taking up more time in my head, but with work being pretty much all-encompassing for more years than I’d like to admit, I’ve been unable to carve out the time to do anything with them. So earlier this year, I nervously approached my employer to see if it would be possible to take some time to devote fully to this personal passion. To my surprise, it was an easy sell, and now I’ve been sitting on this news for nearly eight months!
So without further ado, drumroll please! In exactly 100 days I’m starting a four-month sabbatical from work to try and knit all these fragments into something bigger. With a little luck, they’ll turn into more than the sum of their parts. I’m hoping to take inspiration from a new view, from new people and from new surroundings for a part of my time away. There will be no excuses. I’ll be able to fully immerse myself in creative pursuits.
For years – well, decades actually – I’ve had a recurring dream. It’s been so vivid that it’s almost like a memory, or maybe déjà vu. I’m sitting at a desk in front of an open window. The sun is streaming in and the curtains are fluttering in the warm breeze. I’m looking out at the body of water in front of me and listening alternately to seagulls and ferryboats as they cross the strait. My computer awaits, curser flashing, and beside me is a small tulip-shaped steaming glass of tea.
And I’m writing.
I’ve known deep inside me that I need to make this dream come true one day; it’s taken me a long time to be sure enough that maybe, just maybe, I have something worth writing. So for part of this sabbatical, I’ll be jumping out of that proverbial plane, with parachute packed. I’ve booked flights and found a flat with “that” view for a part of my sabbatical days.
I expect to spend a great deal of my free in the next hundred days scribbling down more thoughts, expanding storylines and doing some research so I’m not starting from scratch. I find myself my equal parts exciting and terrifying. Exciting to have the opportunity; terrifying to realize I “should” make the most of it and be as productive as I can.
Now, I don’t intend to spend all day every day chained to my computer. This time away is as much to clear my mind and to figure out what the next chapter in my life should be about, as it is to write. Call it my midlife crisis, if you will; I’ve recently given myself permission for it to be more about self-discovery and less about a finished product. I hope it will relieve some of the inherent pressure that comes I’m looking forward to long walks, puttering through new neighbourhoods, some side travel, and the occasional company of old friends – or newer ones who might come to visit.
I’m quickly realizing that the time away from work won’t be long enough to do all that I want to do. So I’m choosing to look at as a gift to me. Time away with almost no obligations. No crushing deadlines, no home renovations, no … well, no anything. Just me, my thoughts and things I choose to do for me. Long may this new perspective last, when I come home to finish the rest of the sabbatical before heading back to work in the summer.
So there it is. Secret’s out. Wish me luck!
