Gap Year Guide Musings

I’m working on a gap year ‘guide’ for women in midlife who want to take a break from their busy lives and explore alternate ways of being in the world. On this page I’ll include some of the writing I’ve done about topics that may be included in the book.

My kids have shown me how personality starts even before birth – each of my pregnancies were unique including the amount of movement I felt during each of them. I have learned that 3 people can grow up in the same family, have very different views on things and different priorities in their lives. Because my children are all so dissimilar it has led me to be more open to other perspectives, because I love and respect and care about my kids and I want to understand how they feel about things. Through my kids I’ve seen how people learn in a myriad of ways and can succeed in their lives without some of the things that are often considered essential to have a successful life, such as a four-year college education. I’ve seen how life can feel stable and predictable and then something can shift, sometimes something small, and it causes everything to change, and then your life is in a very different place. 

I see Kieran’s confidence in his hands-on abilities, and how that has carried him forward so quickly in both work and home ownership. He knows his value and moves on if he’s ready to take on more and his current job doesn’t give him opportunities for growth. He knows the kind of person he is and instead of trying to be like others around him he has found a community that is more like he is, where he can be himself and be accepted. Now he’s looking to adventure further away to get more of what he wants in his homelife. He’s also somebody who is continually striving for more. As soon as he gets what he’s been wanting or finishes the project he’s on, he doesn’t savor it for very long before he’s looking out for the next thing. I also see how he puts heavy expectations on himself, as a little boy he would get frustrated if he couldn’t do what his sisters were doing as well as or better than them, even though he was 4 and they were 6 & 8! He was a big cuddler as a kid and continues to be really good at staying connected, calling me every other day or so to catch up and talk about what is going on in his life and doing the same with his dad and Emmy – since Annemarie is in a very different time zone they don’t get to talk too often. 

Annemarie is very in touch with her emotions and they guide a lot of what she does. She is aware of her boundaries, is good at keeping them and knows when she needs to take a break, and have time to herself. She cares a lot about others, particularly kids, animals, and people  who are forgotten or on the fringes of society. She wants to create a world that is more just. She doesn’t have patience for people who don’t treat others fairly. She’s an interesting mix of someone who is an introvert yet enjoys being with crowds of people that she feels accepted by. She likes the excitement of the stage and places that are a little out of control, like drag shows and working with young children. She doesn’t have big material needs or desires, but loves to express herself through what she wears, something that has been part of her personality since she was very young. Her enthusiasm is contagious, though she struggles with the lows that come into her life as well. She’s open about her feelings and straightforward with people who have hurt her. She’s one of the most honest people I know. 

Emmy is such a typical first child, I see so much of myself in her, both the things I love and the things that are challenging for me. She gets along with almost everybody, is welcoming and friendly, and has very specific ideas of how she wants her life to be. Unlike Annemarie whose room was usually messy and chaotic with piles of things everywhere, Emmy’s room was always very neat with her clothes folded, her memorabilia stored on shelves and pictures of friends all around. It’s interesting that she can work in a hospital in what can be a very chaotic atmosphere. I suppose part of her job is bringing order and stability and creating a sense of calmness and control so that her patients and their parents know that everything will be OK and she will take care of them. She cares a lot about other people and wants to make sure she’s doing a good job. For one of the first times in her life, she is trying to find her way in a place she did not expect to be. For so many years it looked like her life was going to go down a certain path, but that recently changed and she is still trying to figure out what happened and why it changed. But she has an inner confidence so even though she can’t articulate specific reasons why she made certain decisions, she knew it was what she needed to do. That inner guidance will be so important for her as she moves through life. I think that’s one of the things I am most proud of, that she could decide to move off the path that was laid out for her, and not knowing where the new one would take her, decided to proceed forward. 

I know that Annemarie often struggled because Emmy seemed to be the one who everything came so easily to. Emmy was pretty, made friends easily and had a very even temper. Even though I think school was easier academically for Annemarie, Emmy was able to stay focused and was very organized, so she stayed on top of things and could go along with what was expected of her. I wonder if underneath that golden child facade were lots of things that she wasn’t admitting to herself. I wonder sometimes how much of that is my influence, what she had seen me doing. It’s hard for me to be objective because I was the oldest in my family, and it’s a different role than that of my subsequent siblings. 

Emmy was my first child, she taught me what it means to be a parent, all of the work and love involved. Annemarie and Kieran taught me different things about parenting because they were such different babies and children, both of them were more demanding in their own ways as babies, plus the difficulty of looking after the three of them together. I learned to deal with so many issues but saw my temper flare when I was overwhelmed or frustrated. I remember reading a quote “I always thought I was a really nice person until I had kids.” Boy is that true! I’ve never experienced the kind of frustration or anger as I did as a parent when my kids were young. I think with most anybody else in your life if they’re driving you crazy and it’s hard to deal with them you can just walk away for a while. But you can’t do that with your own children when they are young, so it teaches you how to deal with challenging situations. I never dealt with really heavy problems, none of my kids got really sick or had any major trouble in school or got into drugs, etc. But even dealing with the normal bumps and lumps they got from growing up was hard. The stress that you take on as the mama bear wanting to protect your cubs and learning patience and how to love someone so deeply even when they are difficult.

When I started my graduate program in nonprofit administration I decided I wanted to get involved in leadership, so I signed up to be part of the nonprofit student council. When I joined I was the only one from the first year program, everyone else was from the previous year’s cohort. Things were pretty casual, we managed to pull together a couple of programs until the pandemic, which basically ground everything to a halt as we all figured out how to adjust. Soon the year ended and they graduated leaving me to start over from scratch. I recruited a few people from my cohort over the summer and we started making plans. When the new school year started, we invited the new cohorts to get involved. Quite a few people expressed interest, which was great. One of my cohort members had implemented some things without talking to the rest of us, then she had health problems and pulled back. I didn’t want her to have to take on extra work so I did the required classes and training for our student organization certification. I tried to impose a sense of order, similar to what I would do with the board and staff at work so that we could get work done. At the time I had a lot going on both personally and professionally and I wanted to keep things moving. At the first few meetings I tried to get through the agenda, but it soon became obvious that the person from my cohort who had pulled back and not done much had not looked at any of the information I had sent out and asked a lot of what I thought were unnecessary questions. Then people started wanting to purchase things that we didn’t have a budget for. I tried to explain how the student group financing system worked and got frustrated because it felt like we were wasting a lot of time and not getting anything done. My sense of wanting to control things took precedence over getting a better understanding of the group and making sure everybody was informed. Because I felt so much stress trying to make things happen a certain way it meant the meetings weren’t fun or interesting or supportive. Ultimately I left the group because I knew I was not going to be able to contribute in a positive way. 

Since that time I’ve learned a lot about letting go of the need to control. I do my part, but don’t take on ownership as much. If people don’t volunteer to do things then they don’t get done and there’s only so much I can do. I do wish I could go back and do it differently. I would spend more time talking about what we could do. I think about my reactions,  snapping and getting frustrated over things not going the way I thought they should. I had lots of feelings of guilt and didn’t want to give up because things weren’t going my way but I realized I wasn’t enjoying the group and I probably wouldn’t enjoy it even if I took a backseat. I didn’t have the right approach and temperament at that time to work with that particular group. I wonder if that came from spending so much time with lawyers and the tensions and issues I’d been dealing with on the board.

What is it that causes women to know it’s time to make a change? I am sure a lot of it has to do with feeling yourself age, seeing what is happening to your body, the effects of time and the lack of self care, often due to commitments and time given to work and family. Seeing parents and older friends and even friends and family your own age becoming unable to do things that you assumed you’d be able to do for a long time. I hadn’t really thought that there might come a time when I may not be able to physically do something I want to do and then I realized that type of restriction could also extend to intellectual or mental barriers. The sense of time beginning to slip through my fingers and knowing I didn’t want to spend any more of my time doing things that weren’t adding to my vitality or that I didn’t enjoy. 

When you get to the point where there are likely less days ahead of you than behind you and you don’t know what those days ahead will be like, it pushes you to live the best way you can. I think about my mom wanting to go on a cruise and she never did. My ex-husband’s mom always dreamed of a cruise on the Nile and she never got to go. 

It’s so fascinating how opening myself up to other possibilities led me to discover things I was interested in that I hadn’t even realized. There were whole worlds that I could explore and enjoy, things I hadn’t even known about that I now want to do. Maybe that is part of the reason we are hesitant to even allow ourselves to explore and want different things. Will we want too much? Will it hurt to think about what we do want and can’t have or what we don’t know how to get? Or will it disrupt the safe and happy lives we have? Why take the risk to open yourself up to something that could make you feel sad because you can’t have it? But maybe it’s all a matter of perspective. Allowing yourself to dream could mean that you become motivated to find ways to do those things. 

I have definitely had that fear of wanting too much, that it would drag me down and I would feel depressed because I couldn’t get what I wanted. I wonder now if it’s not so much wanting too much but not having a good enough understanding of what I did want. Maybe it was about not wanting enough, wanting what I thought I should want based on what others put out there as things to want. By allowing myself to dream and explore and try new things I discover what I do and don’t want which then opens up the possibility of other desires, closer to what is right for me. 
I think about the limiting beliefs that I have about what it is possible for me to do, what I deserve to have. The only way I can get away from society’s and my own expectations and get an idea of what I really, truly want and determine what is important to me is to start down the path to what I think I want and see what happens. By allowing myself that space and experience I can learn and decide what feels right to me. But I can only do that by trying, having experiences and checking in with myself to see how I’m feeling, and understanding what’s coming up for me. Then I can refine and revisit. I might learn something unexpected  about myself and what’s important to me so I have to be willing to explore, go off the beaten path, take the road less traveled, and trust my instincts and be aware of my own perspective. Especially when traveling, this means not just going to the places where the guidebooks or friends say are the best to go but seeking out other places, quieter places.

I am noticing that when I think about going back to full time paid work, a lot of fear comes up, much of it around feeling that I’m going to end up working back in an office and be constrained, not have flexibility, and be miserable. I think there is a lot going on with these feelings, some of it is my fear of working in a different way, of where this unknown will work out. Part of this fear of trying something different, especially entrepreneurship, is of putting lots of time and money in and then not making money and being in a worse place financially than I was at the start. Going back to a 9-5 worklife is known to me, it is comfortable, but not something I want to do any longer. On the other hand I am dragged down by not knowing if I have the courage or want to put in the effort needed to get something going myself. Having my own business feels like it will be a lot of self promotion and other tasks I’ve never done before, and that I’ll end up spending time doing work I don’t enjoy and not have any money to show for it. These are the assumptions that are coming  up. Can I let go of this fear and these assumptions? Maybe there is a different way, one that feels doable for me. 

I know that if I really want to support myself in a different way then I need to put some effort into figuring out other options. I don’t need to figure it out on my own, I’m sure there are books, articles, YouTube videos, and courses that will allow me to learn from what others have tried. It may spark some other ideas for myself. So instead of stressing over it and feeling stuck I need to take steps forward and do things like look at my LinkedIn feed to see what other entrepreneurial types are doing or talk to people about their experiences in finding a different path. 

I’m also dealing with fear of deeper negative emotions, fear I will get swallowed up by them and be unable to deal with the day-to-day tasks of life. Some of this arises from the pressure I put on myself to put on a brave and happy face, to want to show everyone that this time off work has been wonderful all the time. I knew I was very lucky and privileged to be able to take time away from the work grind, but it doesn’t mean that it is all happy feelings and fun times and excitement. There have been so many amazing moments, definitely more than I’ve ever experienced in a year and half before, but I did have plenty of time of feeling scared and unsure and down and lost as I tried to get my arms around what’s next for me. I’m still working on allowing those negative emotions to surface, not cut myself off from those important parts of who I am. To give them space to see what they have to teach me. And, most importantly, to give myself the space to let them dissipate as I do with positive emotions. They don’t need to rule my life.

I feel gratitude for everything I’ve experienced this year and what I’ve learned. This year has been about showing up for my life, paying attention to myself and how I am feeling about things, what I am interested in, what intrigues me, how I want to spend my time. In order to pay attention to what was going on in my life I had to slow down. I wasn’t spending all day focused on getting as much off my to do list as I could. I still sometimes wake up with a sense of loss, of dread and insecurity if I don’t have a list of things to do that I can just chug through the day accomplishing without having to think about how to do it. During this time I have been waking up with a blank slate and being open to what came up, relying more on an internal sense to decide where I wanted to go. I found at first that doing things because I wanted to do them, not because someone else was dictating the decisions, was surprisingly difficult if it wasn’t vacation-oriented. There was no path laid out, no list of what to do. I’m still stumbling around sometimes, but that stumbling is helping me realize what I want to do and what’s important to me, how I want to spend my time. I’m still getting myself motivated to do the work. 

We get rewarded so often for doing things that crush our souls, and don’t get rewarded for going inside and finding our truth and a way to express the truth. But finding and expressing your truth can truly touch and affect someone else and allow them a window into their own lives. You don’t get financially rewarded for that. What I’ve done this year is not helping me financially, but the life I have lived during this time, the things I’ve gotten to experience, the time I’ve had, the space I’ve given myself is just incomparable. I never would have had any of it if I had not taken this time. I don’t know what it’s going to mean for my future, I don’t know if any of this time I’ve spent will ultimately come to fruition with some kind of paid job, but it has paid off in my soul, in breaking boundaries and barriers I had put up for myself, given me a wider horizon of what possibilities there could be and I feel more prepared to deal with what comes next, be it good, bad or a combo of both. 

Who in fact decides what is good or bad? I’m here because of the mountains and valleys I have traveled before – if it was all peaks I wouldn’t have gratitude for all the people who have loved and supported me and challenged me and helped me grow. Without the valleys I wouldn’t be grateful for all the experiences I’ve had, all the beauty that is around. I now realize how little I need to be happy, to feel like I have what I need. In fact, as this year has gone on it seems like I’ve needed less and less. I get tempted to accumulate, but usually when I give myself some space from it, I realize I don’t need it. Books are the exception to that if it is one that I think I’ll want to reread. Paying attention is a big thing. Paying attention to myself and the world out there. Being open to serendipity, things like hearing about an author or artist and checking them out and that leading to new ideas. Stopping at a random Free Little Library and picking out a book that looks interesting and finding out it was just the thing I needed.

Three things I would tell somebody who is thinking about taking a midlife gap year:

1. Spend time daydreaming about what you want to do during that time – anything that interests you, what you want to learn more about, what you may want to consider for the next phase of your life. You can write, but might find it easier to record yourself talking as you are walking in nature, relaxing at the beach, making art or doing whatever you enjoy. Try it at different times of the day and see what ideas come up.
2. Next, do some clearing out of things in your life. Whether it’s a room, a closet, a drawer. Pick something that is important to you in your physical space or something that’s driving you crazy and spend some time getting rid of what you no longer need. It might be going through your clothes, your garage, your sock drawer. It doesn’t have to take a long time, maybe set aside 2 hours, put on your favorite music. You may be very surprised at what happens when you start clearing some physical clutter from your life.
3. Do small experiments. Try something that you want to do but are scared of on a small scale. For example, if you want to get used to doing things on your own, find a movie or play that you have been wanting to see and go by yourself. Treat yourself to an overnight stay in a local town that you have wanted to check out.

Ancient oak trees shed their crowns, which helps to conserve energy and resources, extending their lifespan. Often as we get older, we shed those physical things and parts of ourselves that are no longer important and take up a lot of energy so that we are able to focus on the life we have ahead of us.

It is just so freeing to have less stuff to worry about. In fact, one of the things I’ve been doing while I’m living with my mom is working with her to go through drawers, closets, shelves and storage areas to help her cull out the things she no longer needs or wants. She’s been living in the house for over 55 years, the last 7 years without my dad (understandably it took a while before she was ready to go through his things), and a lot of stuff has accumulated (for some reason when us kids left home we didn’t take all our things with us! 

It can take a lot of emotional energy to go through items with sentimental value. It’s not something you can do in a weekend. You may want to enlist a friend or family member to help or hire someone to assist. Set a goal to spend a certain amount of time or a specific (small) area and work through it slowly. Another idea is to do the 30 day minimalist challenge – get rid of one thing the first day, two things the second, etc up to the 30th day when you get rid of 30 things. It may be a lot more challenging than you realize but it’s amazing the difference it can make. I used several different methods when I downsized, starting with the 30 day challenge as a kickstart. I divided things into 4 categories – 1) trash (items that weren’t good for anyone), 2) items for Goodwill, 3) items to give to specific family/friends (I only added to this pile if I knew who would want it and had asked them – that’s the great thing about cell phones, you can take a pic of the item and send it to them right away), and 4) furniture to give away on Craigslist/Nextdoor/FB. 

I actually had a 5th category – items that I knew I should give away because I had no need for them and they didn’t have great sentimental value but I wasn’t sure I could let go of them. It was a bit of an out, but it allowed me to cull things that weren’t definitely a ‘yes it’s going’ or a ‘yes it’s staying’ and box them up in my garage. I started this process about 9 months before I started the gap year, before I had even decided to take a gap year, I just had an urge to get rid of stuff. I decided to leave those ‘should get rid of’ things in a box and see if I ended up missing any of them. When I moved out of my apartment 9 months later I hadn’t gone back to look at that box at all so I took it straight to Goodwill without opening it. I obviously didn’t need or want those things as I hadn’t missed or even thought about them. 

I had tons of holiday decorations, houses, stockings, lights, etc. I had my kids take what they wanted – two of my kids had bought houses and didn’t have much holiday stuff so they were happy to take decorations and other items with sentimental value. I kept a box of ornaments and decorations for myself and gave away what the kids didn’t want. It was great as I could still see some of those holiday items when I visited them. 

Culling your possessions gives you a good way to start thinking about what, if anything, you are going to spend money on during your gap year. You can get great pictures and videos on your cell phone and purchase things online later. You may want to choose to get a specific type of momento on your trips – I buy magnets, I know people who get snow globes, I met a young woman who buys bracelets – some inexpensive, some pricier. When she wears them it reminds her of trips and they are also great conversation starters.

A gap year will lead you to think a lot about what isn’t working in your life anymore and part of the process will very likely involve culling your stuff. You will feel a need to pare down and get rid of what you don’t need. The things that are taking up space in your physical world have a profound effect on your mental world. 

Stuff can hold us back from making changes in our lives. The cost to purchase and maintain our things requires a certain level of income just to get by. Consider the time that we spend shopping and taking care of the things we own. This impacts our ability to do other things. We get stuck maintaining a certain lifestyle or look or way of doing things that can then make it difficult to make changes in our life. Shopping is seen as a pastime and this mentality costs the average American a lot of money, often for things they don’t get much enjoyment from. There are expectations of how you dress, where you live, what kind of vacations you take, everything! If you are re-examining your life, you don’t want your possessions to be holding you back. You want to travel as lightly as possible during this time. The less you have, the less you have to worry about losing and the less to keep track of. The less you need, the more freedom you have to move through this time.

If you are moving from where you are currently living you have to decide what you’ll do with the things you want to keep. You’ll need to think about where you are going to store. Usually taking a gap year means trying to reduce expenses as much as possible. Your expenses for things like travel may go up but you want to spend the least amount possible on things like storage for items you won’t be using for a while. Will you pay for storage? Instead of a storage unit maybe you have family or friends who have space where you can store your stuff in exchange for a stipend or assistance in something – cook some meals for them, baby or pet sit, organize the garage, etc. When I moved just before the start of my gap year I got rid of pretty much all the furniture I had, most of it was secondhand and it wasn’t worth paying to store. I boxed up my photos, momentos, and other things I wanted to keep. I kept a small amount of kitchenware so if I moved into my own place again I’d have something to start off with and wouldn’t have the added expense and stress of getting a basic kitchen set up. My mom agreed to let me store stuff in her attic, a space she never goes into. 

Traveling lightly also has to do with your daily routines – how much time and money do you spend on your hair, makeup, wardrobe? Is that how you want to spend your time and money? That may evolve during your gap year. Getting my nails done drove me crazy but I did it for quite a while because I felt that I had to have ‘professional’ looking nails. Eventually I decided it just wasn’t me, especially when I saw how agitated I got sitting and waiting for my nails to dry in a salon. At this point I don’t think I’ll ever go back to wearing heels again, they were never high on my priority list but now I wear walking shoes or sandals most of the time, because I want to be as comfortable as possible. I invest in good quality clothing that is comfortable and durable so that I don’t have to spend as much time shopping, something I don’t enjoy. I want clothes that make it easy to move when I’m outside, as being outdoors and getting exercise is important to me. 

Having less stuff to worry about means you can get by with a smaller space. I discovered after a while I didn’t need so many of the things I once felt were necessary. Now that my kids are grown I don’t need or want as much stuff. We spend so much of our early life accumulating and as we get older we find we are ready to start shedding, giving things away to a home where they can be of use. There are so many people who need so much. My favorite thing to do is to be able to give something that has served me well and I no longer need to someone who would get use out of it and enjoy it. My sister has received a ton of great free furniture from people doing this very thing. 

I personally don’t think it’s worth the time and hassle to try to make money from something that you can just give away. I know the people I have given things to would benefit from having it a lot more than I would having extra $10, $20, or $50 in my pocket. I’m not well off, I don’t own property, don’t have enough in my retirement account to be able to retire. I’ve worked mostly in nonprofits, and didn’t earn a lot, but I have often found that when I can give something away that I no longer need it can lead to a very positive cycle of unexpected things coming my way.

What have I given up, what have I sacrificed during this time? 

Some things I’ve given up happily – the discontentment that I felt in my job, the amount of time I spent sitting in front of a computer and working with people who didn’t seem to care about others or that were argumentative. I gave up pretending that I didn’t care how emotionally exhausted I felt so much of the time. I gave up paying a lot in rent and other living expenses that ate up so much of the money I brought in. I gave up a structured life without a lot of time for freedom and expansion. 

Other things have been challenging to let go of – my own place, the ability to decorate it the way I wanted to, move around how I wanted, deciding on the sounds that surrounded me, and space to myself. I gave up financial benefits such as saving for retirement, good health insurance and a feeling of long term financial security. I gave up easy access to social time with friends and colleagues and living close by Emmy.

I’ve been thinking about where I got my ideas about work, what I’m ‘supposed’ to do, expectations and all those things that make it hard for me to break out and do something different. I was always a good student, I got my work done and did what was expected of me. But it wasn’t until high school that I really started wanting to do well in my classes. I liked school and for the most part it was relatively easy. I didn’t have any problems learning to read, I liked doing math, I understood most everything. I was not one to speak up in class, I only raised my hand if I absolutely knew the answer. Basically, I wanted to be a good kid and do what was expected of me. That way I would get the approval from others that was important to me. I never had a definite idea of what I wanted to do so that led me on a career path that was at first mainly focused on office admin jobs. Because I am very efficient and focused when I’m working, office jobs made sense to me. 

When I was in New Zealand, my first permanent full time job was working at the Accident Compensation Corporation, (ACC) and I had planned on staying there. But after a few years I took on a position that ended up not being a good fit, some of it related to politics and bureaucracy, some of it because I was ready to do something different. I got so depressed with the thought of going to work I couldn’t get myself out of bed. I wasn’t sleeping at night and I was exhausted in the morning. I don’t know how long I took off. Maybe it was a couple of weeks? I just couldn’t stand the thought of going back to that job. Looking back now I can see it was my body’s way of telling my brain to stop doing what I was doing. My brain couldn’t figure out that the job wasn’t working for me. I have always thought about that time as one when I went through a period of depression, which is what it was, but instead of it being an overall depression, it was a situational depression related to being in a job that wasn’t right for me and I was not allowing myself to see that. I don’t remember thinking about looking for a job somewhere else and maybe that was part of the depression, that I was scared to see what else was out there. I had been at the organization for four years, it was my first full time post-college job, and I was scared and unsure of what else I could do. I see now that the depression came from feeling like I was stuck in a job that wasn’t right for me, but not having the knowledge of myself to see that it wasn’t a good fit anymore, and that I needed to leave and do something different. All I could see was that I was sad and couldn’t get out of bed. 

I ended up applying for a job that had opened up at the women’s refuge where I’d been volunteering. I remember thinking it would be great, it was very different work from what I’d been doing, I wouldn’t be in an office, I’d be doing a variety of things, helping people. I knew the organization and even though it meant a pay cut that was OK. I could wear casual clothes (which I really liked) and work with others to make a difference. While some of those aspects of the job were wonderful, there were other things that showed me that I didn’t always fit and it ultimately wasn’t the right job for me. I got very focused on getting things done, things I could see and observe to make improvements, like cleaning and organizing the safe house. My focus became less about the people and what they needed and more about doing something practical, something that I could point to and show that I had accomplished something each day. Sitting and talking with the women, without having a specific purpose in mind, was harder for me. Sometimes I didn’t know what to say and I felt like I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time. I was still relatively young, in my mid-20s, and didn’t understand the importance of just being present listening and how that can make such a difference for someone in crisis. My strong need to feel productive didn’t always mesh well with the job of helping people move on to a better life, providing a safe place to be, supporting their courage, providing resources, etc. 

I see that throughout everything I’ve done (work, parenting, volunteering) I get really frustrated when I feel like time is being wasted with just chatting and not getting on with the work to be done even though I know social time is so important for building relationships. I can feel the worry that we’re not doing what we’re ‘supposed’ to be doing pulsing in my brain. Also, knowing that spending time chit chatting when I have other work to do means it’s going to be that much longer before I get to my other work and that’s going to cut into the time I have for other things in my life – what I really want to do. So yeah, I see how efficiency is the antithesis to building relationships with other people. That quote ‘If you wish to go fast, go alone, but if you wish to go far, go together.’ definitely hits home.

So now I am trying to figure out how I can take those natural abilities and things that I am good at and enjoy doing and have them serve me in a way that’s more fulfilling than being in an office all day. Or maybe it’s a different kind of office? But will that make me just feel boxed in and limited? How much am I doing it to myself?

I can tell it makes some people uncomfortable when I talk about the fact that I’m living with my mom. Most of them assume it’s because she is not doing well healthwise and I am her caretaker. When I explain that I initially started living with her so that I could afford to take time off paid work, but now I’m really enjoying living with her, it confuses people. It can be really hard for folks to understand that because of the importance our culture places on being independent for as long as possible. If anything, they often assume it should be the other way around, that my mom should be living with me because she can’t take care of herself. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everyday I see all what we’ve both gained from us having this time together:

We both know there’s always somebody there at night when we head to bed, always someone to say hello and give a hug and a kiss to in the morning, to plan and eat meals with, to help out around the house, to have time together to talk about what’s going on or memories from the past, to be able to celebrate and grieve together. I’m giving my mother extra companionship, getting to know her in a different way.

When I’m there it’s not because of some special reason, she doesn’t need to arrange her schedule around me nor I her. We’re learning about each other as roommates and peers. Learning how to talk to each other about things that we might not agree on, whereas in the past we could just ignore those things because we weren’t spending a lot of time together. 

I can see how she’s doing, see how much she’s physically slowed down in her movements, how she’s become more tired, and can be overwhelmed by too much information. I’ve seen her interest in keeping up with the news and how important that is to her, the TV shows that she watches, that so many center around families that are different and thriving. I see how she has made a cozy life for herself, hear the stories about her friends and their trials and tribulations and triumphs. 

She supports me by giving me a safe place to live, where I can afford to explore and not have to bring in a lot of income right now. She gives me a place where I am completely loved for who I am, where every little thing I do is met with such appreciation. It makes me see how simple it is to make her happy. Taking the flowers she was given and putting them in water for her at the end of a busy day when we were both tired, that very small act of kindness brought a huge smile to her face. I can identify with that after being a parent and so much of your life is just doing things for other people all day long. Even when they are people that you love, it can get so tiring to just have to keep doing it all the time, so when someone else picks up just even a small part of that burden it makes such a difference. Mom and I are also on the same wavelength when it comes to cooking, neither of us like to spend a lot of time doing it. We both enjoy relatively simple meals so we alternate on what we’re making for dinner. The other person is always thrilled not to have to figure out and cook the meal. 

I have a front row view to what my life could be like in another 30 years. It really makes me think about how important it is to take care of my health and make sure I’m getting exercise and doing whatever I can so that my body stays healthy. I do get frustrated with how slowly Mom moves when we are out in public. I’m as guilty of that when I am out around other people – I get annoyed at anybody who’s moving too slow. I do the same when I’m driving. But I see that that could be me in 20 or even fewer years. So I strive to have more patience.

I don’t feel like I am an unsuccessful adult because I don’t have a place of my own. In fact, it feels like a very smart move in many ways. I’m not spending money unnecessarily, I’m not using more electricity and other resources. I am providing support and love to the person who spent decades giving the same to me so that I could do it for my children. I am receiving that support and love back in spades. I am learning about myself and my need connection and love to continue to grow into who I am becoming.

Here are my thoughts about what I learned in Canada:

It was another way of challenging myself to do something that I didn’t know what it was going to be like or if I could do it. I was probably one of the older people that they’ve had as a farm volunteer, it was very physical work. I had some issues at first with my hands getting swollen, probably trying too hard to show I could milk as well as everyone else. I did everything, milking goats twice a day, feeding and taking care of the different animals – goats, horses, chickens, pigs, making cheese, putting up hay bales, cooking pretty much everything from scratch. I do wish I’d gotten to know the garden better. One of the challenges was feeling like a novice in the kitchen, and being embarrassed about that since I was so much older than almost everybody else, so being worried about what people would think about my lack of cooking skills. I was so used to the American pre-packaged, pre-made way of living. 

Speaking and understanding French was definitely more challenging than I expected, especially understanding what others were saying. I found it was easier to practice my French one on one than in a group, when I felt like everyone was looking at me. I was so worried about getting things wrong and now I see how that fear holds me back from learning and growing. It  might have been different had I been in a program that was a specific immersion in French where there wouldn’t have had any negative results had I not understood something or it took me a while to figure out what people were saying. I didn’t want to create a burden for anyone on the farm by my lack of French and if it was easier for them to just tell me how to do things in English then that was fine. I wanted to make sure that I understood what I needed to do and wouldn’t make mistakes that could create big problems, say animals getting sick, milk getting tainted, etc. At least, that’s my excuse. If I do another volunteer stint where I am not fluent in the language I would try to do a short term immersive program before I went so that I would feel more confident in my abilities and I hope I would be more open to just trying and making mistakes. Perfectionism (or at least wanting to appear competent) strikes again. 

It was great to live a very different kind of work life. Being on the farm was different from any  other jobs I’ve had in terms of my work hours, what I was doing and the environment I was in. I loved meeting people who were making a go of life in a very different way than anyone I knew, how much they trusted their own abilities whether it was looking after the animals, making cheese, building a tiny home, making food, wine, or sheepskin rugs. They would try things out and see what happened. So many of the projects didn’t cost much (or any) money so experimenting didn’t result in a huge loss if something didn’t work out. I loved that people had the time to work together to create meals and then sit around afterwards and talk. The work day wasn’t a straight 8 hour block but broken up over the course of the day with periods of free time  in between. I enjoyed the very rustic space that I had to myself above the fromagerie. I liked having the privacy, a space to go outdoors when I wanted to read or dream. Having a job where I was outdoors a good amount of the day was wonderful even when it was rainy. Working with people of different ages, especially younger folks. Going out and having fun with people of all ages in the community. 

I was somebody that nobody knew and had no background with. I didn’t talk much about my work history, so as far as they knew I worked in an office. It was really nice. Nobody seemed concerned about what anybody did for a living, what their aspirations were. It was more ‘Where am I going to go explore next? What am I going to do to live the life that I want? What is best now for my body and my soul?’ I wonder if that’s something I want to spend a month doing every year – volunteering on different farms, having that connection with the land, animals and people. I don’t need anything fancy, just a decent bed, and easy access to bathroom facilities. (I wonder if anybody ever knew I peed in a bucket every night lol!)

Even something like overcoming my fear of driving a stick shift in a different country was a growth opportunity for me. Later when I was in Quebec, Montreal and Toronto I traveled on public transport, figuring out buses and subways as well as walking routes, which built confidence in myself. I discovered I love train travel, which I had already sort of found out a bit last year when I took an overnight train trip from Utah to California. In Canada it was a much longer trip, 5 days and 4 nights from Toronto to Vancouver. I really liked the space, the views, getting to know people and not having to think about how to get anywhere or what and where to eat. That trip was a great end to a long time being away from home. 

My time in Canada has me thinking about doing experiential travel like that more often and slowing my life down enough in order to do so. I like a less hectic way of life, being able to savor, enjoy, connect instead of constantly doing. Living out of a suitcase, albeit a rather large one, for a month showed me how little I really needed, in fact I didn’t end up using about 20% of what I brought. Since I’ve returned I’ve continued to pare down what I have and enjoy the space and freedom less stuff brings. 

The more I go on these adventures, take these risks, try different things, not knowing what would happen, the more confidence I have in my abilities and the more the world opens up. Both on the farm and on the train I talked to people who have been to places that I didn’t know anything about. It got me so excited about those opportunities! In the past my first thought would have been ‘Wow that sounds really cool’ and now it is ‘When can I do that? How can I make that happen?’ I don’t know if that would’ve ever happened had I not done this exploration. I realize I’ve been very lucky with all these opportunities. I also know that things could change any minute, something could happen to my health or the well-being of people I love, there could be climate issues, or another pandemic-like event. I don’t want that to stop me from experiencing what I can while I have the chance. Who knows if those things that I thought might be negative (extended time off from paid work) actually turn out to be positive?

This has been a time of questioning my assumptions about how to live, what I need for retirement, what my work life needs to look like and how I spend my time. I was recently listening to a podcast about rethinking retirement. The guest talked about retirement being more than just financial capital. You need to have social capital built up, for example, a community you are part of and relationships that sustain you when you get older. There’s also environmental capital which is having an environment that is sustainable for people to live in, places that we haven’t destroyed – trees, ocean, the planet. When we look at the bigger picture as a society about saving for retirement, it needs to be more than just about saving money and each individual person saving enough for when they are not working, but more of a group effort by society to look at what supports need to be in place when people are unable to work, whether that’s due to a physical and/or mental inability to work. Personally, I want to always have something that I am doing that’s benefiting society – that’s what I consider to be work, whether I’m getting paid for it or not. This fits in with what I’m doing right now. Work doesn’t have to be something that you do for 30 or 40 years and then you stop and have leisure time for the rest of your life. It really should be a combination of both of those things throughout your entire life, maybe sometimes are more leisure than work and other times are more work than leisure. Creating more equity so that everyone has the opportunity to be able to save money, live healthily and safely and get an education. If we invest in social capital in our communities, then that will allow many of the things that are currently lacking to grow (opportunities, healthcare, housing, education, etc). It’s like investing in prevention, it costs less to prevent something from happening than to fix things that have broken because nobody paid attention at the beginning. As a society we can choose to put our money into making sure that everyone has a safe place to live, an education, enough food to eat, and there is work where people are valued, where no one earns a lot of money at the expense of other people. Where there are supports in place for families and for when people get sick and when people get old. We can take care of our environment, make sure what we are doing is not hurting the planet or other people. We can work together to create places where it is easy to walk to stores and schools and businesses. That leads to people being less dependent on cars and being healthier because they are outside and moving then they get to know people in their neighborhood. It creates a sense of community, community becomes important, and people take care of that community. Then people can slow down because they don’t have to work as much, and they have time to participate in community activities, create places for kids to learn, for everybody to learn new skills and share with each other. It becomes more about building relationships than buying things. Of finding ways of creating a more positive, caring community. Sounds like utopia to me.

I am walking a different path to discover something new, but that doesn’t mean that I have forgotten everything in the past. I am opening to other sides of myself, undiscovered areas. Sometimes I’m not sure what to do, how to make it happen. It often feels stop and start, unbalanced, like I’m not making any progress, flailing around and I’ve discovered that that’s ok. It’s like I’m back to being a 20- something newly graduated from college and figuring out the world. I already have a lot of experience living a certain way and now I’m trying a new way. It can be unsure and bumpy and feel very foreign at times. I’m creating my own path during this time made up of my unique background and skills, what I bring that can benefit others, be they individuals, organizations, communities. I am continually needing to release my fears and expectations of perfection so that I can take what I know and join with others in using our individual skills and abilities and backgrounds and to create something new and beautiful. I want to encourage and support others to do the same thing so we don’t have to keep living our lives in this exhausting, competitive manner. That may entail more wandering in the desert and that’s ok. It doesn’t mean that I’m wrong, just trying to figure it out and I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to do this, to have this freedom to explore instead of trying to fit my explorations  around other things in my life. Today I have given myself time to sit quietly, meditate, and calm my thoughts. It’s been a good thing after my busy vacation. Maybe I needed to get sick so I would slow down and rest.

You can imagine what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes but you can’t know deep down until you’ve tried it yourself. Like spending time in another country where you don’t speak the language. Or when something stressful and scary unexpectedly happens – you can’t find your child when you’re at the park or a crowded place and you feel panic and fear until you find them. Or trying to do something that is very difficult for you but is easy for others. I don’t want to have my life figured out years, or even months, in advance. I want to see what comes up and where it takes me. For so long my life has been focused on getting through schooling, then getting a career started, then having kids and being there to support and shepherd them through growing up, then back on my career. So much of my life was planned out for years and decades and moved at others’ paces and I fit my life around their needs. I don’t want to do that anymore, I want to follow my interests and not lock myself into something that isn’t right for me.

When I think about gratitude it sometimes comes up as a quiet, small, soft feeling, yet it can also be loud and huge and wild. Gratitude doesn’t have to be a still, little thing in the corner of your life. In fact gratitude can encompass everything in your life – how you spend your time, the people around you, where you are, how you are feeling, what you want to learn, what you do for work, how the earth and others have supported you. 

When you think about gratitude what comes up for you? How does it feel? Can you make it bigger? Can it take over more of your life and make it better?

One of the challenges of living and working in a different way than I did before (ie, outside of the 9-5 M-F mode) is keeping up my connections with others. I have to be much more proactive about it because I won’t run into friends or be reaching out to them as a natural part of my work or even just my life. I’ve been traveling and living in different places while everyone else is going on with their lives in much the same way as they always have. Most people are very busy and won’t proactively reach out except to maybe a few close friends. So if I want to stay involved in my friends’ lives I need to make sure to check in and to see how they’re doing and try to occasionally get together in person. 

I’ve made connections with lots of new people during this time of exploration but again I also have to stay in touch with them if I want to cultivate those relationships. These new relationships are ones that have opened me up to different ways of living and of making a living. The connections have also encouraged me to do more of this exploration to find out what else there is and to learn from others. I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. I could spend the rest of my days learning about how other people make a living and not actually do it myself, if I could find a way to afford that. Hmmm – maybe that’s an idea for a book or podcast?

I am ready to let go of:

• trying to do too much
• needing to appear to be accomplishing a lot
• the need for achievement
• needing to impress other people 
• doing things because I think I should do them
• being concerned about what I look like, how my clothes fit, and how much I weigh
• needing to be right
• needing to have answers
• things getting to me and robbing me of the enjoyment of the present
• beating myself up over things in the past that have happened 
• things I can’t change 
• things I have no control over
• worrying about work outside of work
• feeling that life is some kind of contest with prizes and a finish line, and the sooner you get done the better you will have done at it. Isn’t that just the opposite, most of us want the finish line to be a long, long way away?
• the expectations that I put on myself that my life has to be a certain way
• feelings of insecurity about my abilities

One thing you have to consider is how much uncomfortableness and/or pain you want to go through during your gap year, be it in the physical, psychological, intellectual or emotional realm. If you are trying new things, challenging yourself, changing, there will be a certain amount of pain, maybe even a lot of pain. You don’t know what kind of stress you can handle until you push yourself. You can’t go into this time thinking it will all be free and easy with no problems and you’ll be happy all the time. Nothing will change if you don’t do things differently and that can be painful, uncomfortable, exhilarating, depressing, joyful, energetic, exhausting and more – sometimes all at the same time. Go into the year knowing some parts will be easy and fun, other parts will suck, and still others may even be a combination, but you will learn from all of it. 

I love getting out in nature and hiking. In order to expand my horizons of places to go and people to hike with, I have ended up on trails that are much harder than I expected or not as relaxing or beautiful as I would want. Sometimes I go with a group of people I don’t know very well and have to figure out how to start and continue conversations while puffing up an incline or navigating down a slippery slope. It requires breaking out of patterns that I get into with friends I hike with frequently. There are times when I’m on a particularly challenging hike, when my feet ache, I’m hot and sweaty and I just want to be done, that I wonder why I am putting myself through it. Sometimes, I’ll come to a beautiful view, or encounter a friendly hiker (or dog) and that will buoy my spirits. Other times it is not until I am finished and have gratefully taken off my hiking boots that I feel the calm energy and sustenance that I gained during the hike. 

As I’ve learned how to write this book I have worried about how to go about it, how to make it interesting, how to incorporate my story and others stories, reaching out and letting people know about what I was doing, finding people to talk to, actually talking to the people. Would I find out I was wasting my time, would people want to talk to me? And most times, when I pushed past my fear, I discovered how enthusiastic people are to tell their unique stories and have learned so much about them and myself. 

Figuring out how I want to spend my time when I don’t have a set structure has been an up and down experience for me. Sometimes I concentrated too much on not wasting my time that I wasted my time worrying about it – how ironic is that!?  I went into this time wanting to avoid filling all my time with lots of things to do, wanting lots of open time. I found that meant battling my own fears about inadequacy and the need for achievement. So sometimes I was bored or frustrated with my day, constantly questioning whether I was trying enough, doing enough, achieving enough during this time. I wanted to be available for the people in my life – my kids, sisters, mom, friends. It has been hard to know how to do that in a different way since I was the one making changes in my life but they weren’t necessarily doing the same. It is an interesting dance. It was easiest with my mom since I lived with her, so our relationship naturally altered due to us spending more time together. I could see changes with some family members. The fact that I got to spend more time with some of my sisters led to more open discussions and increased closeness. With others I felt a sense of guilt knowing how busy their lives were while I was having an (at times) easier, slower pace of life, with more time to do what I wanted to do. 

One of the hardest things for me has been allowing myself to notice and feel ALL my emotions and not avoid the negative ones. When I start feeling sad I tend to go to a default mode of thinking of the positive things in my life instead of being honest about how I feel and letting those emotions come to the surface. It’s an area where I get the most internal pushback, decades of conditioning and fear have made it very difficult to let go. Strangely enough, I’m finding that my practice of gratitude has helped me to peer around the corner at my negative emotions and to see how they have actually helped me in my life. As I begin to recognize their importance to my mental health, I am occasionally, slowly, inviting them in. 

And, of course, many of the adventures I have been on during my gap year have had uncomfortable, challenging moments. Detailing those would take up several chapters, so I won’t do it here. Looking back I wouldn’t change anything, except perhaps to have given myself more opportunities for uncomfortableness. Who knows what else I could have discovered about myself?

Maybe we have to shed what doesn’t serve us anymore before gaining answers for our next steps. 

Written in early June 2023:

So I came up with two summit goals today, and I am thinking about them as I sit on the summit of a ridge overlooking all the beauty around me. I wonder if I have the courage and motivation to move forward with either of them. Part of me just wants to keep floating here, enjoying this carefree lifestyle of little stress and getting to move at my own much slower pace. Do I want to put in the work necessary (and some of it will likely be very challenging and harder than I expect) to go after these goals? Or am I only doing it because I think I should do it? There are things I’m interested in, think would be really cool to do, that I would learn a lot from and I think they could really benefit other people, but can I push myself to do them? I am scared about getting consumed by these goals and then what if they don’t work out? Was it even worth it? But what if I spent a year working towards each of these goals and having less of this carefree floating lifestyle that I’ve had for the last nine months? What if I feel like I’ve lost something because I’ve spent my time that way? Or would I feel like it would be worth it even if I don’t meet my goals? Would I have enjoyed the journey? Would I have gained more than I lost? This makes me think that I need to make sure the journey is enjoyable and I’m doing it in a way that the journey itself feels like it’s worth it. I don’t think it means that I need to be working flat out and feeling pressure and stress and busyness and a long list of things to do. I think it needs to be the complete opposite, making sure I am taking time to contemplate what I’m doing, and feeling like it’s what I want to do. Maybe my ultimate goals won’t turn out the way I expect, but they might lead me to where I am meant to go anyway. I think it’s time to start moving on from the floating and start taking those first steps and see where they lead. Not letting the fear stop me, the feeling that I have to be bulletproof and know exactly what I’m doing. Take the first step and see what magic that creates.

‘In the beginner’s mind there are endless possibilities and in the expert’s mind there are few.’ Shuru Suzuki

Taking a gap year gives you the opportunity to be a beginner, not only in a new hobby or career path but also a beginner of how you choose to spend your time. You’ve become an expert at living your life a certain way, but it doesn’t have to be that way forever. You can let go and become a beginner again and explore new possibilities. 

I’ve experienced being a beginner in many ways over my gap year:

• Creating a website, writing a blog and posting on a regular basis
• Writing this book
• Being a nomad for months at a time
• Living in a country where I was not even close to fluent in the primary language
• Learning to milk goats, make cheese and be part of a farm community
• Being a nonprofit consultant, including as an Interim Executive Director
• Living as a roommate with my mom
• Creating my own schedule, not at all dictated by others needs (much harder than I ever expected)
• Shedding my need to be productive all the time, doing less
• Evaluating judicial candidates and engaging in productive discussion with others
• Living in a conservative, rural community
• Navigating the unemployment system
• Deciding what is enough and what is good enough for me
• Working at a retreat center
• Learning about creating resilience in my community
• Collage making

These experiences have helped me see the energy and creativity that come from being a beginner. Part of the process of being a beginner is making mistakes and learning from them. The feeling of being allowed to make mistakes, in fact it being almost expected, creates freedom and joy. I can be like my 8 year old self who spent hours doing craft projects, lost in a world of concentrated creativity or exploring on my bike, lost in a world of natural beauty. 

We all start from different places as beginners, bringing our prior experience and talents to what we are learning. This too begets energy and enthusiasm as we learn from each other and see how everyone brings something new to the experience, widening knowledge for everyone, making the possibilities truly endless.

One of the ways I’ve made a bit of money and explored on the cheap during my gap year is by house and pet sitting for family, friends and friends of family. Sometimes it’s been a simple overnight job, other times I have spent up to two weeks looking after dogs and cats in their homes all over the SF Bay Area. House and pet sitting for others means adjusting to a new place and a new way of living, learning my way around other people’s homes (especially kitchens!) and getting to know the sounds and rhythms of their neighborhoods. It’s opened me up to new worlds. I get to see how other people’s houses are laid out and decorated, how much or how little clutter they have, what is important to them, what they read, where they have traveled, the different foods they eat and products they use. I’ve found lots of great books when I’ve been house-sitting for others, tried new foods, and even been inspired to expand my travel dreams! I’m comfortable sleeping in different beds and finding my way around tv remotes (an added bonus is getting to watch movies and shows on streaming services I don’t subscribe to). 

The best part of these adventures is enjoying the company of animals who are happiest when you give them your undivided attention. Because I am only with them for a short amount of time, I really enjoy hanging out with them, whether it is giving scratches and pets on the couch or throwing a ball in the yard. I think it is like being a grandparent – you can have lots of fun with them but they aren’t your long term responsibility. Maybe that is why my sister refers to me as Aunt Treatsa. 🙂 I love when I get to come back a second or third time because they treat me like a long lost friend. 

Being with animals and moving at their pace is teaching me about slowing down and focusing on one thing at a time. Most dogs and cats enjoy snuggling and cats are fantastic teachers for learning how to luxuriate and rest. I had cats for several years and they were very low maintenance, I didn’t have to worry about them when I wasn’t there. I didn’t need to walk them, I could leave them for a weekend, no problem. Dogs are different, they need companionship, physical exercise, someone to feed them twice a day (and dispense treats too). I can see why when people get a dog it often leads to improvements in their life – they have to get outside and move around and often interact with other people. Dogs make you move even if you don’t want to, you even have to pay attention to their poop and evaluate their health based on that! 

Walking dogs allows me to get acquainted with new neighborhoods and people, and learn to navigate different places. After talking to a variety of folks on my dog walks I realized that when I’m in upscale neighborhoods the assumption is often that I live there, not that I’m looking after the dog. Maybe that has to do with the fact that I’m a middle-aged, white woman, not what one typically thinks of as a pet sitter. That’s made me think more about my perceptions of the people I see on my walks. I no longer automatically assume they are of a certain background or socioeconomic class. It makes me give others a little more of the benefit of the doubt, that they are good people and will be friendly and helpful. I think also slowing down, not rushing and noticing things more has allowed me to be open to people I don’t know and more friendly. I’m not as stressed and harried and feeling like I need to get my current task done to get onto the next thing.

July 27, 2022

Thinking that there is so much I can do, that I’m good at but wondering what I want to do. Am I taking the path of least resistance by doing the things I’m comfortable doing and sort of enjoy? Now I can try out new things, which will be challenging, but in the longer term I think (hope!) it will be more fulfilling. To do that will take more than just reading or thinking or talking to people about it. It’s going to be a process of trying things out, experimentation, practice. I’ve had enough experience and knowledge about myself in terms of what I need in paid work, what works for me and what doesn’t, that It should help inform when I try new things to see if I’m on the right path. I know not to expect to find ‘the one thing’ and then move that way. There will be parts of every job that I don’t enjoy but I want something that is overall fulfilling. I see myself doing something that is making a positive difference especially for people who need extra support. Maybe the money is coming from companies, people who have plenty. Either the money will flow or the job I’m doing will entail using money to make a difference to those who don’t have advantages. I need a certain amount of security and safety for myself – to be able to pay my bills but also save for the future. I want to live on the least amount right now and save the rest for when I officially retire from paid work. Can’t imagine I’m not going to want to continue doing some form of work whether it’s paid or not. 

Can I find a way to get paid to go hiking? I could lead folks or write about it. Not sure how much I can make from that. 

I don’t want to be in a situation where I am feeling there is lack, that I don’t have what I need to meet my basic needs. I am exploring what my basic needs actually are. What is the minimum I need to feel happy in my life? So I don’t feel like not having certain things is making life unnecessarily difficult, but I also don’t have so much that it’s a burden, one more thing to take care of and remember and be a distracting comfort. Like when I was at Emmy’s and forgot my workout fleece I realized I had a sweatshirt in the car that could substitute. It may be that I’m not always going to live a pared down life, but realizing the difference between a need and a want is important to me. When a want becomes a luxury I appreciate it more when I have it.  I’m used to more abundance, and I want abundance but not in stuff, I want abundance in experiences and relationships and in my own growth and ability to be there for others. Being that support that can make a difference for others. I’m seeing how much people’s words make a difference. I don’t realize my own impact, hearing from folks makes me think about what I say and do and the impact it can have on other people. I want to make a positive difference in their trajectory. Maybe this will bring me to a different realization about what I want from my life. 

I want my life to expand my horizons, to shed the stuff I don’t need and my preconceptions. See where it will take me, push past the fear of the unknown, the feeling that I’m not enough, not doing enough, not achieving enough. What does my second act have to look like? How can I do it? Do it lightly, both in the impact I make on the earth and within myself so that I’m not so serious about everything, especially when things don’t go the way I expect them to. Lightness in my expectations, lightness in my body, understanding what is weighing me down physically and emotionally. Taking on too much, assuming everyone’s expectations instead of figuring out my own. It’s so much easier to find a path someone else has worn instead of figuring out my own. That path will have twists and turns and dead ends, I’ll need to backtrack, feel like I’m losing time (always something that is sooooo hard for me to deal with). But that’s irrelevant, life is more about what happens, not a set time table. Everything that happens builds, it’s not a race. There is no end point, it’s what I’m doing right now and making sure I’m not doing something now that forsakes the future. Being so dug in, so that I’m not able to see the impact on the other parts of my life or the long term implications of my actions. 

Right now it’s time that I have with Mom that I would have never had if I had stayed in my apartment. And while I enjoyed the autonomy of my own place, I also get a lot out of being with her, seeing her in her routines, what is important to her, what touches her. I don’t know how much longer I have with her. 20 years, 20 hours. One of my goals is to be here, be present. If it means sitting in front of the TV more than I would like, that is ok. It could be helping to bring something into her life. I’m also giving myself more room to take care of myself. Sleeping as I need to, getting out and moving, feeling, not just stuffing things in. So many podcasts and books I’ve been reading lately seem to focus on the importance of being kind to yourself. It’s not easy, I’m doing the best that I can. It changes every moment, some days the best I can be is more than other days but beating myself up over it is not going to make it any easier. Be kind, give me more ideas about where I need to go, what is next instead of a bunch of shoulds, feeling anger and frustration about myself. It’s interesting, it is easier delving into my brain and figuring out what is going on when my body is still, maybe I need to do this as a type of journaling as well and transcribe it in my blog as part of what’s going on in my adventures. There will be some editing going on, I don’t want this kind of length. Maybe I can help others in their exploration. I found these little hidden places in the trees, something I’ve always loved, finding a hideaway, a place I want to live. What I’ve done before doesn’t have to be the way, there is a different way I can do this.

Some of my time during my gap year has been spent disconnecting – taking hours and days away from my phone, from other people, from reading and letting my mind wander, allowing myself to feel bored and unsure. This disconnection has been a gift – I could more clearly see the thoughts and ideas that came up when I wasn’t letting myself be distracted so easily. Boredom led to wonderful serendipities when my mind wasn’t captivated by a book or my face glued to my phone. People I had lost contact with would pop up in my mind and I would reach out, only to discover they were exactly the person I needed at that time in my journey. I became more aware of what was going on outside when I went for walks or hikes, noticing details that led to making connections and discoveries about who I was and what was important to me. I discovered how time in silence was a balm to my soul and helped me to relax.

It wasn’t easy to disconnect, anxiety often ate at me when I didn’t have something specific to do. I found it was really hard to stop myself from wanting to take pictures in order to document where I’d been and what I’d seen, instead of just being present, experiencing and enjoying the joy of the moment. In some ways the more beautiful the place the easier it was to let go of the need to take photos because my phone couldn’t capture the beauty my eyes could absorb. At those times I could bask in the awe and glory around me and trust that I would remember it in a different way then if I had tried to capture it in a picture. It also led me to be more observant knowing I couldn’t look back at the scene again. Another challenge I found in trying to disconnect was stopping myself from reading as a distraction. Reading has always been my favorite way of filling my head with other thoughts and ideas instead of going inside and connecting to my own insights and feelings. To make this easier I journaled so that I could get onto paper what was going on in my head. Often I didn’t need to write much and then was able to let go and enjoy having more free space in my mind.

While I have found so many positive benefits to disconnecting, from increased creativity to improved happiness levels and a healthier body, it is still not an easy thing to do. I have to continually remind myself to step back from my technology habits in particular. These disconnection efforts are a work in progress, I don’t imagine I will ever be able to do it without regular nudging (or shoving). But I know it is worth it and I’m grateful for every time I give my mind, body and soul more room to breathe.

While you will likely spend time traveling ‘externally’, i.e. physically traveling places you’ve wanted to visit or revisit, you will almost certainly spend time doing internal travel, learning more about what makes you tick. Often the impetus for taking a gap year is to have space for this internal travel. 

You may also decide this gap year is not about traveling to another place, that you want to stay at home instead. Maybe because of health, family, financial or other reasons you can’t physically travel. It could be you want to spend time transforming your home, creating indoor and outdoor spaces that inspire you. Intellectual pursuits may call – catching up on the books you’ve wanted to read, engaging in genealogy research or taking classes in an interest area (maybe starting that long dreamed of PhD program!). 

Spending time on creative endeavors, whether they are long-time passions or new interests, is another focus for a gap year. Your interest may be in writing a book, learning to play guitar, painting, sculpture, whatever. A gap year is a wonderful time to make that creative space in your life. So often in our busy lives, just dealing with the day-to-day necessities and keeping your head above water can be challenging enough, much less having uninterrupted time and space to let imagination and creativity bubble to the surface. 

You may want space to deal with the trauma and challenges that have come up over your lifetime. Similar to supporting creative efforts, time and flexibility are imperatives when diving deep into first understanding the impact of past trauma then taking steps to heal yourself.  

You’ve lived for many decades and have had many experiences. A gap year is an opportunity to contemplate all the things that have happened in your life and see how they have impacted who you have become. Life Worth Living is an excellent book based on a course of the same name taught to undergrads at Yale. While it’s great for the best and brightest of our youth to consider what is important to them at the outset of their lives before they go onto careers and raising families, my guess is that many of them don’t have a lot of life experience to bring to answering the questions in the book. I think at midlife, after having lived the ups and downs of many years of life where we learn many lessons from the school of hard knocks, we are more equipped to deeply consider these questions. At midlife we likely still have time to affect the kind of change we’d like to see in ourselves and our communities. Whereas if we wait to do that exploration until we are retired (i.e. likely much older) we may not have the physical capacity or mental ability to do that work. 

One way to combine internal and external travel is to spend time at a retreat center. This does not need to be an expensive undertaking. Through the website WorkAway, I was connected with a wonderful retreat center in Wyoming. I spent just over a month volunteering there in exchange for a free place to stay and some meals. In fact, because of the lower cost of living in Wyoming in the end it was less expensive than spending that month living at home. For approximately 15 hours a week I helped to prepare meals, worked in the garden, cleaned rooms and did some nonprofit consulting. The rest of the time was my own to spend enjoying the beautiful acres of land the retreat center was set on (where I frequently saw sandhill cranes, elk and deer), walking the labyrinth onsite (which I did on a daily basis anywhere from sunrise to after sunset), exploring the surrounding area (the center was an hour from Yellowstone National Park) and getting to know the retreat center directors as well as my fellow volunteers that I shared a house with (fascinating people from different parts of the US and other countries). This gave me time and a beautiful place to think about where I wanted to head in the next stage of my life, as well as opening my eyes to other ways of making a living. On the WorkAway site (and other similar sites) there are hundreds of retreat centers of all sizes and types in the US and around the world looking for volunteers.   

Another option for combining internal and external exploration is going for long walks in nature. Many people, both young and old, take to the Camino de Santiago, the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and many other long sojourns for not only the physical challenge but also as an opportunity to sort through issues they are dealing with in their lives. There are famous examples such as Cheryl Strayed’s book Wild, and the movie The Way with Martin Sheen, but your path does not need to be as dramatic as these. You also don’t need to be a backpacker – half and full day nature hikes can bring you plenty of time for contemplation, especially if you go during the week when trails tend to be less crowded. One of the benefits of not working a M-F 9-5 schedule is being able to enjoy places with fewer people around. 

This is only a very few examples of the possibilities for internal ‘travel’. In the end it doesn’t matter how you take time for your own internal work, it matters only that you do it.

I took this time off because I wanted a different experience of life. I wanted to see what else was out there for me, what kind of possibilities could be opened when I wasn’t doing what was expected of me or when fear was holding me back. How would that change how I spent my time, what I cared about, how I contributed to the world? How would it change my perspective, how would it change ME? Or would it? Would I want the same things, spend my time in the same way? 

My life felt so cluttered and I felt so out of touch with who I was and what was important to me. Really, I knew what was important to me but I wasn’t living my life in a way that made those things a priority. My justification was that I had to make a living and take care of myself financially. But did I have to do it in that way? Was there a different way? How much of what I was doing could I let go of? I wanted to have less, do less and be less of what I thought I should be. 

While I have loved living a more nomadic, unstructured existence, it’s also been really challenging. It’s so easy to fall back into habits and routines that are comfortable, especially the busy, productive, efficiency-focused way of living where I can feel ‘accomplished’ at the end of the day, even if I’m not earning any money doing it. Now I can tell when I’ve spent too much time in my get-it-done-right-and-right-away mindset, I’m wound up and can’t relax and enjoy what is in front of me, my life starts to feel rushed and constricted. When I give myself more time and space to be fully present in my life and have fewer things on my plate I am much happier, more creative and kinder. I’ve discovered that having less in my life has actually allowed me to have more.

I don’t consider myself a risk taker. I’ve been more of a person who goes with the flow, generally going along with the crowd. I’ve always had an extra cushion in my savings, don’t stay up too late, don’t drink too much, try to stay on a steady, even keel, don’t get too emotional, try to avoid highs and lows. I have been known as a productive worker, someone who works well with others, does a good job, but not the person who does something really different and unexpected or innovative. I’ve been more of a ‘good girl’ who does what she should do and helps out. From this vantage point, taking the risk to quit my job (a job that paid well for the nonprofit industry, and I could have stayed at until I retired), give up my apartment and move in with my mom was a huge step for me. 

But in deciding to take that step I realized that there have actually been many other times that I took big risks and pushed myself, and even though it was always scary and challenging, those risks were always worth it in the end. 

• Moving to New Zealand after college, I had no idea what kind of work I would do or what it would be like living there. 
• Moving back to the US when I was pregnant and neither of us had jobs or health insurance. Not having health insurance was very scary and demonstrates why medical costs are the reason most Americans declare bankruptcy – I was very lucky to get into an emergency insurance program 3 weeks before my daughter was born. 
• Climbing Half Dome on my 40th birthday with 3 friends, a physical challenge that I am still very proud of. 
• Coming out in my early 40’s, probably one of the scariest things I’ve done and am still doing, there are likely people who know me who are shocked reading this. 
• Getting divorced when I was working part-time at a non-profit, trying to find a place to live in the very expensive Bay Area and being so worried about how it would affect my kids. 
• Taking on my first Executive Director position, a big step up for me professionally.
• Going to grad school at the age of 51, not sure how I’d pay for it or do the work. It had been almost 30 years since I’d been in college. I’d brought a typewriter to college as an undergrad for god’s sake! 

During my journey I have upped my risk-taking game considerably – traveling by myself to several states and countries, stopping wearing makeup, road tripping with two of my sisters, volunteering in places that were very different from what I’d done before (a retreat center in rural Wyoming, an organic goat farm in Quebec, Canada), writing a book about my experiences, taking on an Interim Executive Director role, agreeing to look after animals that needed extra care (or vigilance!), serving as a non-attorney member on a commission that evaluates judicial candidates and more. Allowing myself to step back from a busy career to experience a different life has been fantastic for gaining confidence in myself and my abilities and shedding what no longer suits me. 

As Helen Keller said ‘Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.’ The rest of that quote is often left off, but I think it is even more important for those of us who don’t feel they are  risk takers to hear ‘Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.’ Amen!

At times during my gap season I have felt guilty and/or privileged because I had the opportunity to stop working for a while and explore. It seems so dilettante-like to feel that I’m meant to be doing something different, perhaps more creative, more ‘the real me’ and that I had to take a break from full-time paid work to figure it out. I have found that getting off the work treadmill feels both elitist and, paradoxically, humbling. Sometimes I am embarrassed to think that I can do something really different with my life, like starting my own business or being a permanent nomad. I still question if it’s ok for me to quit the everyday mundane routine of my life, to let go of others’ expectations of me. Who am I to want this different life? Who am I to think that I deserve and am capable of doing something better (whatever ‘better’ is)? Those thoughts have been in my head, popping up at regular intervals any time I’m not traveling or doing something that completely absorbs me, creating guilt and insecurity. Questions creep into my mind – Do I deserve to do this? Don’t other people deserve this more than me? Shouldn’t I have just been happy with the life I had before? It was a good life. I had an interesting job, worked with great people, spent time with friends and family doing things that I enjoyed. So why did I want something different? Who am I to think the universe will provide that for me? 

Those feelings have not gone away as I’ve spent this time exploring. Overall that critical voice has become less invasive and quieter, though at times it has gotten louder, especially when I go through periods of ‘I should have this figured out by now’, ‘When am I going to know what is next?’ Sometimes the closer I get to figuring out a longer term plan, the more I start feeling pulled the other way toward avoiding making a decision. Is it my insecurity tugging me back and forth like a favorite toy being tussled over by two toddlers? Is it my fear of stepping back into a more ‘regular’ life and being in exactly the same place I was before? For so long I felt like I’d been doing what I was supposed to do, not what I wanted to do. I worry sometimes that this time has not made any kind of a difference in my life. 

Yet I know taking this time HAS made a difference for me in how I’m living my life, what I’m doing to make the world a better place. I don’t have it all figured out yet and I’m not sure I ever will figure it out completely. I have realized that I will not come out of this time a completely different, transformed person who is creatively and financially successful with a perfectly happy and balanced life. That doesn’t mean this time was not worth it – that it would have been better staying where I was with the security of a paycheck, diligently saving for retirement. Even if it means that I end up doing some kind of low paying work for a while to pay the bills, it has been amazing to live a life with more freedom and flexibility. I have so enjoyed learning more about myself (even when it’s not positive!), being able to slow down, to not wake up every day feeling like there is a countdown timer that has started and I’m already behind. It’s easy to float from task to task and feel a sense of accomplishment, checking many things off a list, but it is crushing to look back and realize that many of those things really don’t matter in the end, they were just a waste of time, time I could have been spending in a positive way – building relationships, having space for creating something new, or just enjoying the life that is right in front of me. 

So yes, it IS a privilege to be able to take this time off from paid work, and I am grateful to everyone who has helped make it possible. One way I am making the world a better place is by helping others get the opportunity to have this same privilege.

I think we need to establish a foundation that gives scholarships to women to help them fund gap years later in their lives, just like the scholarships available for students going to college. It seems to me that the cost of a midlife gap year would likely be less than the cost of funding a full year of college expenses and would have a much bigger impact on the individual and their community as these scholarship recipients have already shown that they have skills and abilities that are valued in the real world. It could also be a boon in promoting sustainability and living with less as women take the time to decide what they do and don’t need to live a happy, sustainable life.

One option is to have a gap year scholarship include a residency component at the beginning. Say having groups of 6 to 10 women living in a large house together – or individually in tiny cottages each with a bedroom, bathroom and living area. Then a separate central meeting place with kitchen, dining and gathering areas where breakfast and lunch are open but dinners are communal. There would be lots of time during the day for contemplation, walking in nature, reading and creative work. Maybe everyone gets a copy of the book Life Worth Living before they attend as a way to start thinking about what is important to them, and then they gather regularly for discussions and workshops. They would stay for a month with an option to volunteer and help out future sessions. It would be a time to transition from a busy life, formulate plans for a gap year, learn and get inspiration from others, as well as allowing those the attendees live with and/or support to figure out how to get along without them for awhile.

You often hear about kids who take a gap year either between high school and college or college and getting a job, as a way to explore and get a better idea of what they want to do. While that is great to do at that age, I think it is even more valuable, especially for women, to take a ‘gap’ year at midlife. By midlife you’ve experienced a lot of the world, had ups and downs and challenges, have a better idea of who you are, what you like and don’t like, what you are good at. 

But also at midlife there are often lots of questions –  What if I had taken a different path? What about these other things I’m interested in that I never pursued? Who else am I? Who else could I be? Many people also have a desire to travel and explore or to have a completely different routine than the often hectic one most women have for decades of their lives. Midlife might be a time when the kids are grown and you have an opportunity to do something for yourself, when you don’t have to worry about others’ needs and can break out of routines that are no longer working for you. You may find that you want to live lighter and/or in a different way. 

Doing something different – writing the book that’s been inside you, trying out new sports, working on a farm, spending more time in nature, etc. Midlife is a fantastic time to do this – you have many life experiences to bring to whatever you choose to do in a gap year. If you are still in decent physical shape and not burdened with too many physical ailments you can go out and do new things. Or maybe that’s part of the impetus for taking a gap year, realizing what decades of sitting at a desk staring at a computer has done to your body, mind and soul so you want to stretch yourself to make positive changes. 

Maybe you are questioning your life – there has got to be more than this, can I do one more year of the same thing? How can I figure out who I am after being buried for so many years under other people’s needs – kids, aging parents, bosses, employees, etc? If you don’t do it  now – when will you do it? When you retire? Will you have the energy and health to do what you want when you retire? Do you even know when you might retire or what you may want to do then? 

A gap year can be a way of looking at your life from a new perspective and exploring different ways of working that may be more sustainable and enjoyable. You could  realize there are many things you spend your money on that aren’t important to you and you don’t need as much as you thought to live on. You could also discover the same thing with how you spend your time. 

Tenured professors and a scant few other professionals get sabbaticals, an opportunity to move away from everyday work and pursue something that is of interest. That is another way to look at a gap year, as your own sabbatical.

This was written when I spent a month volunteering at a retreat center in Cody, Wyoming in May & June 2023. There were several areas on the property where you could go for quiet, contemplative time. My favorite was a large labyrinth made from local stones that I walked at least once a day.

Walking the labyrinth, seeing the twists and turns of my life. There are long arcs of easy continuity, then abrupt changes, sometimes lots of them. I spent the first 50 years of my life moving into the middle of the labyrinth and now I’m making the slow, more thoughtful journey back out, contemplating where I’ve been, seeing my life (and myself) from a different viewpoint having gathered all this knowledge. Now I’m deciding what I can do, what I want more of, and what I can let go. 

If you get distracted by something in a different part of the labyrinth, you may get confused and end up going backwards. Just concentrate on the path before you and keep moving forward one step at a time.

When you walk a labyrinth with others, sometimes you are walking parallel to each other and then one of you turns and you go opposite directions. Other times you pass each other or you end up on opposite ends of the labyrinth. All of these ways of being together in the labyrinth will occur, whether you are walking in or walking out.

What would I have wanted in a guide before I took my leap?

• Stories about other women and what they’ve done, especially ‘normal’ women. Learn about challenges they’ve faced. What surprised people about their unique journey.

• Resources – books, YouTube videos, podcasts, websites.

• Things to consider, questions to ask myself

• Encouragement.

• Dealing with fears, about the journey, the future, everything!

• Dealing with change

• Dreaming, sketching out what I want to see happen during the year.

• Figuring out some trial runs, plans for areas that might need to spend some time doing before I feel ready to take off,

• Acknowledging that I may never feel ready and just have to do it at some point.

• Potential plans after the year and backups if it doesn’t work out, what else can I consider doing?

• Perspective shifting. What kind of life can I create for myself when I know I can’t go back to what I was doing before.

• Different things I want to try before and during the year

• What I want to discover about myself.

• Considering the external and internal barriers that I am facing. What can I do about them?

• What are my core projects and what are those things that are important to me in life? Is it about understanding myself, being there for others, travel, internal discovery?

• What is calling me?

• How do I deal with being open to new things but not getting pulled into things that aren’t important to me?

One of the podcasts I listen to is called Women in the Middle, hosted by a life coach who helps women figure out where they want to go next. In one episode, she talked about the top 10 reasons why women have a midlife crisis or slump. As she was reading them off I kept saying ‘check, check, check’ – all of those things were true for me before I started my gap year. Here are the reasons and my responses.

Top 10 reasons women have a midlife crisis or slump

One. You notice you’re not as content or happy in your life as you used to be. 

Check!

Two. You were surprised you were so stuck. 

Yes – I’ve always been able to move myself forward when I’ve been stuck in the past and it was not happening this time.

Three. You catch yourself thinking about running out of time

This one really hit home. As I was starting to see people my age and younger get sick or become disabled or die, I knew there was so much more to life, and I didn’t want to miss out. I could see physically some things were becoming harder, some of it because of my age but I think also some of it because I was sitting a lot and feeling unhappy and stressed, so I wanted to do something different while I still had time. I suspected a lot of the different stuff I wanted to do was more physical and nature oriented, and I wanted to be able to do it. Recently a friend who was about 10 years younger than me and had served on the board of the organization I was Executive Director for, died suddenly. She had three young kids, and it was completely out of the blue. Those sorts of things make me realize that time is going faster than I realse. 

Four. You’re frustrated that you don’t know what you’re passionate about.

This is an interesting one. There are lots of things that I am interested in and maybe even passionate about, but don’t know how to make a living out of any of those things. And is that what I’m supposed to be doing? Is that what all this is about, figuring out a way to make a living? Or maybe it’s like the Reimagining Retirement podcast where you’re looking at different ways of leading your life so you don’t have to work as much or you’re setting things up for the future where you can follow your passions, regardless of how much income they bring in. I am finding that the more I listen to podcasts and see what else there is, it’s sparking things in my own mind. Just recently being offered the opportunity to be an Interim Executive Director has given me a way to earn some money, use my expertise to benefit an organization and it’s giving me something to put on my résumé to use to get future work. Two months ago this wasn’t even on my radar. I had vague ideas of doing some kind of consulting, but didn’t know how to get started and this literally fell in my lap. It never would have had I not taken this break from work. Coming into this organization as a consultant is giving me a wider view and willingness to open up to taking bigger risks and ideas. So you just never know where things are going to lead you. I am noticing the things that are getting me excited and make me feel good as well as the things that are dragging me down as I am going through this transition to doing something different. I tend to be ruminative when I’m having a hard time, I start thinking about all the stuff that has gone wrong, and could go wrong and potential horrible outcomes. But in terms of being thoughtful about what’s going on, recognizing what I’ve experienced and learning from that, I’m not always so good at it. I think it’s because I default to dropping back into that taskmaster frame of mind, needing to get things done. My thinking is ‘How did this go? What could be improved for next time?’, not dropping deeper down into my feelings and how it impacts me emotionally. When I was working with the life coach, she would ask me how I felt about things, and it was really difficult for me to really figure out how I was feeling. Often I would think ”How should I answer this? How should I be feeling?” I couldn’t drop down into what was actually going on for me. Part of that might’ve been my life coach and her attitude, which felt judgie sometimes. She helped me in so many ways. I may not have been able to make those changes without her, but in terms of me feeling safe enough to really be able to get deeper into how I was feeling, she was not the right person.

Five. You were tired of wasting time living out of alignment with your priorities.

Yeah, this was definitely going on for me feeling like I was putting a lot of work into something that wasn’t benefiting the community in a way that I valued. I also didn’t want to waste my time and energy dealing with people who weren’t there to actually help the organization, instead creating all kinds of unnecessary strife and unhappiness. I didn’t want to spend any more of my time and energy on something that was feeling increasingly unimportant, and with people who didn’t have the same priorities I did.

Six. You find yourself feeling envious of women who made a significant change in their lives, and their happiness.

It’s so funny to think that I am actually one of these people now. I became that person in many people’s eyes before I had even embarked on this journey just by telling them that I was leaving and I didn’t have any clear idea what was next except to do some traveling. I can’t think of one person who said ‘Oh I’d never want to do that.’ What I heard most often was ‘Oh I wish I could do that’, followed by all the reasons that they couldn’t. While a lot of those reasons were valid, I had just as many valid reasons why I couldn’t do it, but I still did. I’m hoping that I continue to be the person that others envy so that it will motivate them to at least question what they’re doing if not actually make changes. If we all did that a little bit more our world could be really, really different. I want to find more of those people who I envy, learn about their lives and give me ideas for what I could do in the future. 

Seven. You notice a lot of autopilot thinking, and autopilot behavior in your life.

I was often exhausted leading up to the point of deciding to leave my job. Even though I felt like I wasn’t doing very much – in fact, I was doing less than I normally did. Once I made that decision, even though it involved a lot of work, it felt less exhausting because I was moving in a positive direction instead of just being worn down over and over again, living a life that wasn’t right for me. Because I was so tired, I was on autopilot. Not thinking about what I was eating, how I was spending my time outside of work, what I was doing at work. I didn’t want to think because when I did it dragged me down, and I felt so depressed. It was easier to just tune out and not feel anything and let life happen. It started to become comfortable to have wine every night, to get lost in watching TV, to numb myself from the pain that I was feeling. When I started making changes it was challenging and painful at times and there was a lot of fear about what could happen. I found that when I took one step at a time, just took some kind of action, it helped me to move through the fear, and it became a more ‘active’ kind of pain. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it’s different from the pain that I felt when I was frozen and immobilized, unable to move forward. 

I got more energy from the challenges, and when I actually made changes, took steps forward, tried different things even if they didn’t work out, I felt good just trying. For example, if I needed to get somewhere on public transport that I hadn’t used before I would try it out and remind myself that “It’s not the end of the world if this doesn’t work. If I’m late or whatever there are other options”. When it did work, when I did manage to get myself where I needed to go it felt really good. Lots of those little victories helped me along the way and gave me confidence to try other things. Some of those things I look at now and wonder what was the big deal about it. At the time it felt really huge, maybe because it was the first step in an unknown journey? My efficient, get-it-done-right brain wanted to be finished as fast as possible. Thinking about all of the work that needed to be done felt overwhelming. But when I just broke it down to what I needed to do at the moment it was so much more manageable and bit by bit things started happening. I started my blog and had a couple of days of frustration when things didn’t work as well as I thought they should, but then I got it up and running. Now I look at it and over the course of 19 months I’ve got well over 400 entries! Something I could’ve never imagined at the start. The blog is a record of my journey in a different way. I have a more private record through my journaling, though I try to be as open as possible in the blog. It’s one example of the many little steps I took every day to get where I am now. I don’t necessarily have any better answer to the question of what it is that I want to do longer term but I am a lot more confident in just figuring out what I want and how I can get there. The world feels more open, there are more opportunities.

Eight. You fantasize about doing more of something.

Yep, that was one of the main initial motivations for quitting my job. I wanted to go see my daughter in New Zealand and spend extended time with her, I wanted to travel to national parks, I wanted to explore different jobs. This was one of the strongest signs that it was time for me to move on.

Nine. You know deep down that there’s more out there for you.

This feeling kept getting stronger as I got older, as the kids started leaving home and making their own lives, and I had room to move from needing to work for survival, making sure I could  afford to pay rent, save for their college and deal with things that they needed. But once it got to the point where I didn’t have to support them any longer, it freed me up to think more about what I wanted and what changes I could make in my life in order to do that. That led me to dream about doing something different. Doing my masters program also reminded me of all the different kinds of nonprofits that are out there and that I could do something using my skills in an organization that supported people who had other needs. I wanted to do something different, I was tired of the relentless juggling, there was so rarely downtime or room for taking extended time off or contemplating and experimenting. I didn’t want to live my life being stuck in an office and stressed out by having to finish dozens of tasks every day to prove my worth.

Ten. You don’t want to have regrets.

This was something my life coach talked about as I was struggling to decide what to do. When all of my fears came up about quitting my job and what could happen next, she asked me to look ahead into the future a year, five years, 10 years and from that perspective look back and think about what I would regret. Would I regret taking time off from work to do something different and see what else was out there or would I regret staying where I was? There was no question to me, I knew I would regret staying. I saw that I would look back and mourn the risks I hadn’t taken more than the security I derived from staying where I was. Or even worse, I would put things off and then it would get to a point where I couldn’t do them anymore because of a physical, mental, family or other reason. As I looked at all of the other things that could potentially happen if I stayed at my job and kept my life going the same way it had been, I realized that the most likely thing to happen to me was becoming very depressed, angry, resentful and hating my job which would lead me to quitting anyway, but in a much more negative and potentially destructive fashion. It became a logical choice to leave once I knew that I didn’t want to stay and I didn’t want to try to change things. 

if I had been in a position where I had no other resources, I didn’t have someone I could stay with, I didn’t have savings, I likely would not have felt that choice was available to me. Or maybe not. I had gone through a period of depression because of a job I had in my mid 20s. I literally could not get out of bed and could not face the day. Since that time I have gone through occasional times like that, but usually it has only lasted a day, maybe two. At that time it went on for weeks and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get out of it. I never want to go through that again, I never want a job to cause me that much emotional trauma. I’ve learned a lot about myself since that time, and I wonder if I’d forced myself to get up and get out for walks every day and talked to people about what was going on at that time, it may have been very different. I have seen the power of physical exercise and being out in nature keeping my soul buoyant and helping me deal with stress in my life. On the other hand, it may have been my body’s way of telling me it was time to move on, it was something my brain couldn’t figure out, whereas this time, almost 30 years later, my brain figured it out, and my body did not have to rebel in the same way. It still took a while, and a lot of facing my fears of the unknown, what people would think, and my insecurities about myself and my abilities. I am so thankful that I went through that experience in my 20’s because it got me out of a job that wasn’t right for me and into other work that led me into my nonprofit career.

A friend recently asked if I had time to talk about an issue at work she’s grappling with. She said she considered me to be an ‘untethering warrior’ and ‘needed a shot of that magic’. This just lit me up in so many ways – first that she reached out and asked for help, something that is always challenging for me to do and it’s so good for me to see others who have the strength and courage to do it. Second, it made me feel good that she thought that I had some kind of skill or ability which would help her out. Third, I absolutely LOVE the term untethering warrior! I have never thought of myself in that way, but that’s a way of describing what I have been doing during this time of reevaluation. 

After several years of running a non-profit association I decided it was time to do something different with my life. At first I thought I would just find another Executive Director position at a different kind of nonprofit, but eventually, with the help of a life coach, I realized the something different I wanted to do was to take a break from paid work – something I eventually came to call my ‘Midlife Gap Year’. At first I thought I’d only take 6 or 9 months off, plenty of time I assumed to figure out what was next in my work life. Ha! At the 9 month mark I felt I was only just beginning to get an understanding of who I was and what I wanted to do next. I was absolutely in love with the freedom I had in my life – determining how I would spend my days, having lots of time with family and friends, being outdoors much of the time, traveling to National Parks and other countries, taking time for more creative endeavors. Throughout this time I have kept a blog of my experiences – the adventures, the highs and lows and in betweens. I have started writing a book about my experiences, a guide of the sort I would have loved to have when I started contemplating this adventure. I have grown so much in this time, realizing how little I need materially to be happy, gaining confidence in my abilities, both personally and professionally and altering my outlook on life and the future. 

Untethering myself from my old life has made this possible. The Cambridge dictionary defines untethering as “To release a person, animal or thing so that he, she or it can move or act freely.” Synonyms for untethered are unbound, released and unshackled. And that is exactly how I have felt during this time – I am free, released from the shackles and binds that kept me in a small, rigid world. There are many reasons why I am able to take this gap year – my kids are all independent adults supporting themselves, I am living with my mom when I’m not traveling so don’t have huge rent payments and I have very few other expenses. 

Untethering indicates that you are detaching from the way you’ve been living your life, from the expectations of others, from your own ideas of what your life ‘should’ be, and are allowing yourself to float and see what else is out there. You are no longer tied down to a specific job or way of living your life or expectations of others. 

When you are tethered to something you are unable to explore, you are restricted. It is harder to see what else is out there as your vision is impeded. You can be tethered to responsibilities, time can be a tether so you don’t have the ability to do things and go to places. You could also be tethered geographically. When you’re untethered, you have freedom not only to explore but also to observe more of what is going on around you. You are less of a mad participant rushing around, you can see the wider picture of the world you inhabit. When you’re untethered you can stop when something interests you and check it out. You can have an unexpected, extended conversation with somebody, sit down and really be present. When you’re tethered, you are being pulled back and yanked around because of others’ needs (even if it is something they can handle themselves). Consider the effect this has on your body, mind and soul. If you can untether yourself from even one or two things it will allow you more movement and the ability to see things that you may have been prevented from seeing before. It can be scary to untether because you’ll be floating and you don’t know where you’ll end up. You don’t know what forces might be acting or pulling on you. You don’t have to untether completely, maybe keep one long tether. Some tethering chords are stronger and more rigid, others are longer and more flexible and can expand further out. You may want to live for a while with very long, flexible tethering cords that give you the maximum amount of self movement. Or you can let go completely and see where it takes you and how it expands your outlook on what is possible in life. Untethering brings challenges – you will go places that are new and you have to learn your way around, learn the language, culture, etc. You will have to become more flexible, adaptable, open to new and different things. You will become less rigid. 

Merriam Webster defines a warrior broadly as “A person engaged in some struggle or conflict.” Another definition I found of a warrior was someone who has  “Willingness to take action in a dangerous situation.” To me, the word ‘warrior’ connotes a strong woman, someone who is fierce in defending what is important to her, a person who advocates and protects others. In a way I am defending people’s rights to live a different life, to let go of the expectations and needs of others. I am definitely questioning how I’m living my own life, why I’m doing it this way, and wondering what else I could be doing. I’ve been thinking a lot about how what I do benefits myself and others and how it wears me down and doesn’t provide a positive benefit to myself or others.

When I talk to others about my experiences taking a mid-life gap year I have tried to encourage them to consider living their life differently, especially if they’re not happy with how it is currently. I wonder, is the magic my friend referred to a window into a different life? Or exposing people to other possibilities, showing those sliding doors of other paths they could take? Is the magic the ability to peer into possible futures, to create a little tear in their worldview to expose what else could be there? I love the idea of creating magic for others simply by talking about my experiences, allowing them an opportunity to question their version of reality and what they feel they ‘have’ to do, how life should be led, how work has to be done. In the past I had talked with my friend about ways she could make changes to her job so she had more time for herself, such as changing the number of days a week or weeks a month she worked or taking an extended leave. We discussed her options if she was denied her request for an extended leave, one being that she could choose to quit. She has lots of experience, unique skills and good relationships in the community so those advantages would likely make it easy for her to find a job with the same company or another similar type of organization. Some of the fear coming up for her seemed to be that she will take time off and realize she doesn’t want to do that work anymore but she has no idea what else she wants to do which tells me she does want to leave but is scared to make the move. She’s at a point in her life where she doesn’t have a lot of financial responsibility for others now that her son is an adult and she has a loving, supportive extended family. Maybe this is a good time to take the leap and see what else is out there.