Sharing a bit about my mini-break before I started my new job!
What a week! Last Monday, I started a new chapter in my professional life. The last few days have ben an absolute whirlwind of paperwork, tax forms, sifting through health care and retirement plans, and HR training videos with quizzes at the end. I feel more at ease now that I’ve got all that checked off my to do list and towards the end of the week, I started being roped into more email chains and meetings for my role.
I am really grateful that I was able to take a mini-break between wrapping up my old job and starting my new one. In my last few roles, I ended a job on Friday at 5pm, turned in my work phone and laptop, enjoyed the weekend, and then reported that Monday morning to a new job where I was issued a new work phone and laptop.
The last few months of my old job were probably some of the busiest times that I can recall. Wrapping up our months-long video project, archiving videos and photos, and handling everything in-between had us feeling like we were moving nonstop.
On Tuesday, the last day of my old job, it felt like an out-of-body experience to hand over my work phone and head home. I now had until Monday to unwind and decompress before I started my new chapter. When I took a beat and reflected, this mini-break was the longest stretch of “unemployment” I’ve had since I started working for my town’s recreation department when I was 16.
I will admit that on Tuesday night, I woke up in a panic not once, but twice, from a dream where I couldn’t find my work phone and I needed to put out a statement for my boss.
Decompressing was definitely going to be a high priority for me during this break.
If you asked me, an extrovert, how I foresaw spending these precious days of freedom, I would have told you I coordinated with friends to set up coffees, lunches, happy hours, etc. every day.
I was shocked when my mini-break arrived and all I wanted, needed….was peace and quiet.
The first morning, I woke up at my usual time (no alarm clock was set but old habits die hard) and took Miss Riley on a long walk all over our neighborhood. Funnily enough, I realized shortly after we started our walk that I had left my phone (my only phone!) on the kitchen counter. I paused and considered dragging Riley back upstairs to get it…or I could just continue our walk. There wasn’t going to be a work-related emergency or a crisis that had to be responded to immediately. It felt incredibly liberating to realize that for the first time in a long time, I didn’t have to have my phone glued to my side.
After our walk, I fed Riley and made myself breakfast. Continuing the no-phone streak, I tossed my phone in our bedroom and flopped onto the couch with a book. And, of course, the world’s neediest hound next to me. The joy I felt over reading a book for a full two hours without stopping, no pausing to refresh my work email, no phantom buzzing of my work phone blowing up over tweets was exactly what I needed.
Quick Note: I do want to say how much I loved my old job and don’t want you to get the wrong idea that my old job did not make me happy. That couldn’t be further from the truth. This experience was simply a matter of me learning what it felt like to actually take a true break.
For the next few days, I burrowed. My days were a blur of walks with Riley, meditation, reading, enjoying The Nanny reruns while I had lunch, pilates, dinners with James, and enjoying an extra glass of wine at dinner (I was on vacation!). I did do a deep clean of our apartment and completed a few personal housekeeping tasks that I had been procrastinating, i.e. dropping off dry cleaning. It felt good to check those boxes off my list.
It wasn’t how I thought I’d spend my mini-break but it was exactly what I needed. I feel refreshed, re-energized, and ready to take on what’s next!
