I’m writing this from a hotel room bed. It’s not even 5am. I have no obligations until noon when the Uber comes to carry my teammates and me to the airport, but I can’t sleep because I feel like a kid on Christmas day. Today is the last day of my team meetup in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. It is also the first day of my sabbatical. For the next three months, my time is mine to rest, visit friends, garden, travel, and create.

It feels unsettling to begin a sabbatical right now. I have survivor’s guilt after recent layoffs, and I can’t help the niggling worry of, “Is it irresponsible of me to take time off now?” I try to self-soothe with math: 3 months of paid time off in one chunk sounds really expensive; spread over the 5 years for sabbatical eligibility, it equates to an extra 2.4 weeks of vacation per year. That feels more reasonable to my worrying mind.

One of the podcasts I listen to put out an episode on sabbaticals just last week: Why You Should Take a Few Months Off Work (Live from SXSW) from the Happiness Lab. I was eager to listen because I knew that the host, who is a Happiness researcher, would cover the benefits of sabbaticals for personal well-being, but I suspected she would also go into the benefits for the organization providing the sabbatical. And she does. One of the biggest benefits of sabbaticals for a company, in addition to the happiness, creativity, and rejuvenation of employees when they return, is that sabbaticals result in resiliency for the organization. While I’m away, a teammate will step into the role of leading our support operations team. They’ll bring fresh ideas, build leadership skills, and become an additional source of institutional knowledge.

This makes me feel less selfish or guilty or worried or other uncomfortable feelings I feel. I don’t want to dismiss those feelings, but I also want to appreciate this unbelievable gift and not spend all my time fretting. That would defeat the purpose entirely! I’m not going to return in three months feeling refreshed and ready to bring my best to work if I spend this time worrying or decide not to take the sabbatical and burn myself out.

I’m feeling a lot of feelings right now, is the tl;dr. But the feelings I feel most are gratitude and excitement. I’ve been looking forward to this sabbatical for about two years, and I’ve been counting down the days like a student counts towards summer vacation or child counts towards Christmas day. And now the time is here.

Two truckloads of mulch will be delivered to my house on Monday. I’ll spend my first week in the garden. When I shovel mulch, pull weeds, and dig in the dirt, I become totally absorbed. The work is physical, and it clears my mind. I expect getting into my body next week will provide a clean divider between work and not work.

I expect to blog more now that I’ll have the time and space to. I’ve got some fun stuff planned: gardening, a trip to see friends, friends visiting me, and travel with my husband and our son to Paris, Lille, and Brussels to visit our daughter while she studies abroad. I’m sure I’ll find fun stuff to write about through all of that.

Meanwhile, here are some peacocks from the Dominican Republic. See you soon!

Daily writing prompt

Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.

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