Four months doing....what?

I'm writing this at the request of a dear friend, garch. When he heard I had four months of relatively complete freedom he couldn't believe it. He's a guy who rarely takes more than a couple of days at a time off from work and he almost couldn't comprehend the idea of four months of idle time. He asked me to tell him what it's like so I'm going to try. I'm going to address two key questions: How on earth did I manage four months off and what has that experience been like?

Question 1: How did I manage to get four whole months off?

A bit of backstory is in order here so be patient and read on. If you don't want the backstory, just skip to the Question 2 heading. Backstory begins in Nov 2001. I lost my job, my ex and I were splitting so I decided to move into my own place and return to school. Through dint of much hoop-jumping, I was able to sign up for a couple of unemployment programs that not only paid for a portion of my books & tuition but allowed me to continue receiving UI during my schooling. All worked out well, I was able to complete 2 1/2 yrs worth of work in 1 1/2 yrs and graduate with honors.

I had originally planned to take a big trip or some time off after school, neither of which I did. Instead, I returned to work as a contractor, first on a six week assignment and then on a five months assignment. While on the longer assignment, I began thinking about grad school, researching programs and schools. At the beginning of Nov 2003, I flew to Portland and decided I was going to PSU. I also knew my current assignment was scheduled to end around Thanksgiving. This put me in an awkward position timewise. I could look for work knowing I could only accept extremely short term assignments - highly unlikely given the time of year - or I could simply bite the bullet and be unemployed for the 2 1/2 months I had left in NC. Because I'd worked enough, I was eligible for UI again so I chose the unemployment route. End of backstory, brings us to the second question.

Question 2: What has this experience been like?

It's been, in Dickens' words, the best of times and the worst of times. Obviously, there are all the perks that people associate with time off: laying in bed until all hours, no alarm clocks, don't have to shower as frequently, making lunch plans with whomever you like, visiting people, reading, doing whatever chores do or don't seem appropriate, bumming around, watching lots of Buffy & Angel, eating whenever you feel like it, and a total lack of responsibility to anyone other than yourself. Yes, that stuff has been totally cool and I've enjoyed almost every second :)

However, it's also brought to light an important realization: It's been difficult for me to find meaning in life without some external structure. We're so conditioned to having others tell us what to do and when to do it that it's extremely challenging to do *anything* without that framework. The flip side of the 'beholden to no one' coin is that you're beholden to the most important person of all - you. You're the only one looking at and judging anything you do. You have to report to yourself and decide whether or not what you did was important. The little indices & rewards of accomplishment that we're used to aren't there. You don't have project completion dates, you don't have reports to organize and present, no clients to woo, no one to say "I'm done, what next?" to, no familiar landmarks you can use to judge your progress, and no paycheck. UI doesn't count because you're not actually doing anything to earn it.

Although much of my time has been spent organizing a coast to coast move, doing some intro research & reading before classes begin, and spending as much time with loved ones as possible, there are few things I can look at with a sense of accomplishment; few things that I can get that feeling of having done something concrete. For a recovering overachiever like myself, it's torture. I'm literally living the phrase "It's the journey, not destination" and it's really really difficult.

Much of this time has been about learning to set my own priorities, determining for myself where I want to focus my energy, and deciding for myself if those choices were worthwhile. So much of what I've focused on these last eight weeks have been things that society considers as secondary to the *real* (working) world - personal growth, loved ones, health, and my happiness. It's often hard to function, to do, to accomplish, when you're the only boss you have to answer to. Releasing the need for external structure and control is not easy. On an extremely high level, we're conditioned to it since birth. We're trained to respond to external conditions and other people's commands. Being cut loose from all that has proven challenging. I've had to readjust my thoughts and my corresponding actions to reflect a new sense of internal control and power.

But that's what it's all about, isn't it? Taking time off to rediscover ourselves? That's a trite and cliche phrase but it holds a fair amount of truth. Until you can exist for a while outside the system, you can't have a clear idea of how deeply ingrained in our lives its rhythms and patterns truly are, how it sets our priorities, and can often determine much of the course of our lives. I've been able to discover what, if any, value the structure of the working world has for me. I've also been given the opportunity to reflect on how much of my personal power I've been conditioned to give away to external sources.

I'm truly grateful for this gift the universe has given me and I'm also extremely grateful that garch asked me to describe it. I realize that this may not be the kind of description he was asking for but it's what I felt led to write. Thank you, my friend :)