Would you ever take a "life sabbatical"?
lessons from a month of solitude and another mini New York diary
The phrase ‘life sabbatical’ was mentioned in this Guardian article inspired by my latest book A Year Of Nothing — it’s a great piece by journalist Anita Chaudhuri and it got shared around a lot. I like the phrase. I technically did have a life sabbatical last year but it wasn’t that fun: I was unwell and house-bound for most of it and really didn’t do much at all. Sabbaticals, surely, are ideally meant to be an active choice.
sab·bat·i·cal: a sabbatical leave is an extended break from work i.e. traveling the world, or spending more time with family.
Since reading the piece, I’ve been thinking about the phrase more and more. And just as it happens, right now I’m on a different kind of life sabbatical. An experiment of sorts. I’m still working every day, but when a friend of mine said I could have her apartment in Brooklyn for a month, I said yes and I went alone. I’d been craving the experience of solitude in a different, more energized way.
(I am aware of my situational privilege here by the way, I’m a married, child-free, self-employed solo worker and have a relatively small amount of responsibility right now.)
Below is my last New York diary and some reflections. I go home in a few days, and I’m glad so many of you enjoyed reading the diaries! (Hope you’ve enjoyed the previous two: in case you missed it you can read them here and here). The Hyphen will soon resume its usual programming and I’ll be on UK soil again.
First, here are some things I noticed from spending time alone in a new place on my ‘life sabbatical’: