I woke up at 1am the other night. Are you familiar with the 3am(ish) anxiety wake up call? Thoughts, problems and longings so urgent, they wake you from dreaming. Thankfully, it wasn't that kind of wake up call. This time was different. Calmness. Excitement even. A sense that everything was going to be alright. Safe in this suspended, liminal space, I'd time travelled far away from yesterday and nowhere near tomorrow. Like where we go when we sleep*, but this time I was wide awake.
So I made a cup of tea in my favourite mug and settled back into my puffy cloud of a bed. Candle on, rain pitter-pattering against the window** and nowhere to be but right here.
Whilst in this cocoon, I listened to a brilliant podcast - How to Take a Life-Changing Break.
It was about taking sabbaticals. About how we don’t live in a world where it’s acceptable to take extended leave. We don't promote making space for exploring and pursuing things we might want to do that don’t fit into regular life. How a year of travel at 18 is a gap year but at 40 it's often seen as a mid-life crisis. How space to experiment and do nothing seemingly productive is likened more to a personal melt down than a journey of self discovery or an essential moment of major life re-orientation and re-configuration. And how living an authentic life is about a series of intentional experiments, following our curiosities, and getting into a process where we play out our ideas and dreams about who we could be and what we could do***.
...Now that's a life worth waking up to, I thought as I drifted back off to sleep...
Thanks for reading. I really love receiving your replies and hearing about what resonates with you. With love until the next time.
Fi
Ps. Here's a nice playlist. Perfect for a slow or rainy day.
*Where do we go when we sleep?
** Why is the sound of rain against the window so soothing?
*** If you could suspend the obstacles of money, expectations and responsibilities, what might you want to explore on your sabbatical?
Send me your answers on a postcard :)!