Sabbatical

This summer marks ten years at my current employer. You can summarise a decade in a lot of ways:

Ten years

Six managers

Five teams (give or take)

Five houses

Three cities

Two CEOs

Two continents

Two names

One birth

Ten years is also an opportunity for a pause. I am afforded 12 weeks of time off after 10 years of service. I will hand off all my projects and take Slack off my phone, and I will be left to my own devices for the rest of the summer.

Some of my coworkers have grand plans for their sabbaticals, mostly involving travel. I have no such plans: planning a trip and traveling with three children is expensive and stressful and feels like a lot of work when the whole point is to not work. Still, I can't help but feel conflicted: I want to see more of Europe, but air travel is environmentally irresponsible; traveling is difficult, but being in that new place is usually fine and fun (once you convince a child or teenager to do anything at all); it's not my last opportunity to travel, but it's possibly the best opportunity for a long time.

It's complicated. It's easy to settle for nothing, just staying at home and doing whatever. Maybe I will ride my bike, maybe I will read or get a driver's license or study Swedish or something technical, but no plans, pressure, deadlines. It's more complicated to even allow myself to consider something grander.

I don't know what I want. Or I'm just scared to want more than the bare minimum.

✑ Annika

📅 12 June 2022

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