A Year Off... Looking Back

Today is Friday, April 17. Officially, my year off was to go until May 8. But with mixed emotions (make that, severe mood swings) this cockamamie experiment of being both scientist and lab rat has come to a close. On Monday of this week I began the next chapter in my (work) life as Director of Marketing (take THAT Marriott Gods!) for Ice Sensations.

If I had it to do all over again, which I don’t, I’ve repeatedly asked myself what would I do different. The answers I come up with are ambiguous, to say the least. For every positive, there’s a negative, and for every negative, there’s a positive. That’s nothing new, for me especially.

I must say “the end” has been fairly anti-climatic. I don’t know what I expected, but it certainly did not include moving all my worldly possessions into storage for the last 3 months of my year off, and living between parents and sibling and friends homes out of a suitcase and a few boxes, only to get engaged and move my things back home with Gary. Albeit, certainly a highlight, but boy it was a long road to hoe just to get back to where I started. I know there’s a lesson here. I’m thinking of Dorothy… Clicking her heels together after Glenda tells her she had the power to go home all along. “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” And Auntie Em telling her it was all just a dream and she just needed to be still and get some rest. Yeah, it’s kinda like that.

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At the beginning of this time off, I would have said I hope to end the year fully enlightened as to my purpose on this Earth. I would have said I hope to end the year in the best physical shape of my life. I would have said I hope to end the year with a final grand hurrah - with a major tour of Switzerland, Spain or Singapore.

These three things, to a certain extent, have been what my year off has been about. Finding purpose, meaning and adventure in my life without relying on “my job” to be the central character in my life’s story. And I have found some solace in knowing that I did things this year that I would never have been able to do, had I been working 50 hours a week behind a desk, trussed up like a turkey in full pinstripe regalia and binding undergarments. Have I always been a dreamer? Yes. Have I always had grandiose ideas and notions of how my life should be, compared to how it is? Yes. Have I learned to tame those fantasies and my wild imagination? Maybe, but I doubt it.

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Looking back over my blog, which I thankfully used to document a great deal of the year, I’m filled with lovely memories. Distinct themes arise. Nature. Food. Family. Over and over I documented my environment, my adventures, my discoveries, my indulgences, and my roots. I know how lucky I’ve been to do and see and go anywhere and anything on a whim. I’ve logged thousands of miles on my car. I’ve taken countless pictures. I’ve reconnected with people I didn’t think I’d ever see or hear from again, and have spent massive amounts of quality time with my closest loved ones. I also finished my year with 1/3 of my budget still in tact, which I can now hopefully sock away. I’m DAMN proud of the way I managed my money and with only a few exceptions, don’t feel like I squandered it.

So that all sounds great, right? Well, it wouldn’t be right to leave out the bad stuff. Probably the hardest part of taking this time off was taking myself out of a highly structured, highly routine way of life, and just did whatever I wanted. Specifically, I’m talking about sleeping between 9 and 12 hours a night for 99% of the year, and wasting days on end doing absolutely NOTHING. My internal clock has been turned upside down. I get a “second wind” around 11:00 at night, and can stay up til the wee hours of the morning like it’s the middle of the day. I must say though, that for the last 2 months I’ve made a concerted effort to go to bed around 11 or 12, and get up somewhere between 7:30 and 9:00. This change back to “normal” hours has been VERY difficult, and I struggle to understand how I managed to get myself up, dressed and driven to work by 8:30 a.m. every week day for the past 15 years, not to mention when I was in college and before that even. I justify this by saying that quite possibly, I was simply exhausted from 37 years of living on someone else‘s watch and for once I was going to live by my watch.

But herein lies the rub. On someone else’s watch, I have been a productive contributor to society. But on my own watch, I have been a complete and total slacker. And this is a demon I can’t come to terms with. This fact KILLS me. There have been many times in my life where I’ve said, “left to my own devices, my life has just gone to hell.” And while I wouldn’t exactly say my life has [currently] gone to hell, it certainly hasn’t gone “perfect” either. So here’s another major lesson I’ve learned about myself: I have yet to master self-discipline. In fact, I don’t know that I will ever have the discipline to be the “me” of my dreams and aspirations. Is that a cop out? Have I thrown in the towel? No. But what is clear to me is that I need structure, and I need to be accountable to someone other than just me if I expect to get things done. Now, I’m not talking about stuff like getting the dishes and laundry done here. I can manage the day to day crap just fine. It’s the BIG STUFF I‘m talking about. Like…launching a full-on assault on my life long weight and self-esteem issues. Like… deciding whether or not to start my own enterprise of whatever description, or am I simply better suited to work for someone else - which is also OK. Not being able to manage these things for myself or on my own makes me feel like a complete failure. I mean, I KNOW what I need to do, it’s just finding the motivation that is so hard for me. SO HARD. But here’s the last major lesson I’ve learned in this time off - there’s no sense in trying to “go it alone”. Surrounding yourself with people who love you and who have your best interests at heart is a GOOD thing. I even have a name for all the people who currently, or who will shortly, make up my support system. “Team Abby”. The takeaway being - that so much of this past year I’ve wanted to “just be alone”. I now realize that being alone is fine for a day here and there, but I need to keep in touch with my people, see and be with my people, regularly, if I plan on keeping my sanity from here on out.

I’m sure as the days roll on I’ll have more thoughts on wrapping up this year off. I will continue to use the blog as a place to record progress and jot down thoughts and post pictures, so please keep checking back!