Mermaids & heights: reflecting on my 2022 sabbatical

Santa Marta, Colombia

In Feb 2021, I saw how fragile the flickering light of life is from all the lives lost during the pandemic. While I was deeply grateful to be employed in a low risk, remote job during 2020-2021, I felt the life slowly seeping out of me, so I decided to realign my life by planning a year long sabbatical for 2022. With a good paying job, aggressive saving and moving back in with my parents, I calculated that I would have enough throughout the year, and I put in motion my plan to take an intentional year off from my career in product management. 

I shared my plans with very few people, but it was the motivation that got me through the hard moments at work that year. In January 2022 I left my job and officially kicked off my sabbatical in the middle of the Omicron wave of COVID, and with a short, but debilitating illness. Officially the cause was food poisoning, but I felt like my body, finally out of survival mode from my job, was releasing all the stress I had been carrying for two years.

I remembered the moments at work when I cried in frustration after telling my interim manager that I was overloaded and receiving no meaningful response. I’m the kind of person who throughout my life has struggled to speak up for myself. I’ve grown enormously in doing so, but I still can struggle with carrying a burden in silence for too long. In my weaker moments, by the time I’m saying something it might seem like a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10, but it’s probably a 12. I share this personal fact to illustrate that it takes a lot of courage and pressing through internal discomfort for me to speak up.

Contrary to this weakness, however, I had communicated to this manager the issues my team and I were facing along with proposed solutions as soon as I recognized them. After multiple conversations and documentation sent over months, I was beyond taxed and angry that he took no action until I involved other leadership members. I was livid when during my annual review his feedback was that I needed to grow in asking for help when I had a literal trail of emails and presentations where I had communicated my needs. Despite the resistance I faced at the job, I was so proud of the ways I grew in using my voice to not only support myself, but to advocate for my teams. I couldn’t, however, continue operating in a context where a large portion of my energy went not only to my job responsibilities, but also towards justifying why my team or I needed support. And after many cycles of burnout throughout my 15 year career, I knew I couldn’t keep up with this pattern.

Before my 2022 sabbatical, there were multiple times I quit jobs without having another one lined up -- the very thing career experts tell you not to do. I did it after my very first job at a start-up where my anxiety and depression first emerged after working horrendous hours with no boundaries. I did it after leaving the non-profit where I didn’t make enough money to cover my basic life expenses. I did it after my first digital agency job where, despite excellent reviews and often working from 9am to well past midnight (no I’m not exaggerating), I eventually learned I was paid 40% below the market rate for my role. They say that you should find a job before quitting your current one, but with most jobs I couldn’t imagine finding another one while I was stretched far beyond my capacity in my current one. In this regard I’ve taken multiple career breaks, but the prior ones were driven by desperation, rather than intention.

This sabbatical showed me more than ever that the time is now. It helped me embrace the truth that I don't need permission to pursue what I want or need. As far as I know, no corporate job will let you take a year off for a sabbatical, so I created one. To share my creative work, I thought I needed to be "perfect" or have the backing of a publisher or a music label, but I realized that I can create and share what I want, when I want and how I want, even if it’s imperfect. So I started sharing my creative work in a more serious and consistent way, and I started making plans to build a creative business. 

It was freeing to own my schedule and make choices about when and where I wanted to go. It was empowering to understand my strengths and gifts more. To believe in myself more. To have the vision and agency to weave together the disparate parts of my life to see that I’m a powerhouse and have so much to offer the world. Being a person that highly dislikes change, it would have been much easier to do the familiar thing and jump to another draining job. The thing that, while exhausting, is what I know, but my sabbatical helped me do the hard and scary things I’ve wanted to do. It helped me take a leap and get momentum. Inertia is so core to how I operate, so for 15 years I was inert in the same grinding loop until this intentional break. My career breaks born from burnout had me at the mercy of the corporate grind. This break, however, emerged from my intuition and intention, leading me to rejuvenation and growth. 

When I was little, maybe 5, I loved swimming. I remember how free I felt in the water-- spinning, twirling, floating and defying gravity. I even used to climb high diving boards and jump off into the water. I marvel at how brave I was being that small, yet leaping from so high! Life happened, and somewhere along the way it squelched my bravery. There were so many tiny cuts that made little me retreat into herself. I don’t fault her. She did what she knew how to do to stay safe, but I want to dive from on high again and be that little mermaid in the water. To laugh without reservation, to love boldly, to own my compassion and sensitivity as a beacon and super power. I want to say to little me: 

You are safe. You hid because you needed to hide to stay safe, but I am here now, and I will keep you safe, love. We can fly high again and dive deep and twirl in the waters of the Pacific, the Atlantic or wherever else you want to go. You are courageous, beloved one. Such an explorer, such an intrepid wanderer. Such a lover and a gentle warrior. Such a ray of sunshine all year long. Don’t be afraid to find the high diving board and dive in again. 

After this sabbatical I feel like I am 5 again on the high diving board. Looking out over the pool, so much bigger than me, but valiant, I still jump. I am free in the water, twirling, spinning, leaping and defying gravity. At heart I am an adventurous person, but I got boxed into order throughout my life to keep myself safe. I got boxed into order to make a living, and the free spirit within me hasn’t had space to thrive until this season. With this sabbatical I’m leaving behind what crushed me in my early adulthood. I can feel a new version of me emerging, so unfamiliar, but also reminiscent of something from long ago. She looks like me, but lighter and liberated. Her face is lit with a light from beyond. I have died, and she has emerged boldly from the water. The little mermaid in me that jumped into the water from on high.