It’s time

A piece on how I came to quit my job and the start of my personal sabbatical.

I feel like everything in my life has been building to this moment. The corporate life as a lawyer, the moves across the world, the personal crises, the therapy, and then more therapy, the change of career from law to business services and the change of pace that brought - opening my eyes to different people and different attitudes.

I look back and see each change, each step, each milestone as necessary to lead me to today.

I quit my job.

I can’t believe I am typing that. A surge of pride fills me. I’ve done the ultimate bold move. Bold was my word this year and I’m definitely using its power to guide me.

I have been at my firm for 13 years in various permutations — as a paralegal, a trainee, a solicitor, a BD exec and a BD manager. I have worked in their London and Singapore offices. I have travelled and done closings on ships, I have talked a lot about ships (I was in the maritime team)! I have counselled colleagues who became friends, and they have counselled me. I have done all nighters with incredibly talented team members, I have worked consistently hard and metaphorically shed blood, sweat and tears. They were my constant through a rollercoaster of life’s milestones — a divorce, a career change, coming out, geographical moves and lots of grief. I grew up with this firm.

To resign was more than walking away from a job, it was a final letting go, a final release of that last crutch in my life. I have been practising being out in this world in my authentic self, under the safety of structure, and now I am ready to shed. I have done lots of work shedding the ‘good girl’, the ‘people pleaser’ - taking responsibility for people and things outside of myself. I have worked on saying no and finding boundaries. I’m loosening the idea that authority knows best. I am learning to show up as radically honest and listen to my inner compass without validation or justification. Even if it’s a path less trodden and that makes people feel uncomfortable.

In my pursuit of finding a home within myself I have had to let go of the externals I was holding on to. It was too scary not to have my firm in my back pocket whilst I wasn’t comfortable in my ‘alonement’. They are my family, my rock, my safe space. They knew me, they held me, they liked me, they were always there.

But it was finally time.

I see the cringing cliche… but I went to India for 2 weeks and with a lot of heady-ness and turmoil on what I want, what work I want to do, who I want to spend my time with and where… I ended the trip with what felt like a pilgrimage to the Taj Mahal. She was ethereal and spectacular and unreal all at once. If you haven’t been, please go. In the sunrise light she was untouchable and as pale as the sky behind her. I cried as I saw her peep through the opening in the gated entrance, and just stood looking at her majesty. I took the hand of my close friend standing next to me for some grounding and I knew that something was shifting in me. I brought myself to this moment all by myself. I can do this.

I came back to London knowing I needed to ask for time. In my head, it started as asking for reducing to 3 days a week, then morphed to 3 months off, then 6 months… then a year. Then finally on my first day back in the office I texted my boss asking for a coffee. She knew. I knew. She called and I cried and she said ‘do you want me to say it for you?’ Such kindness. She reminded me how brave this is to walk away from something that doesn’t quite fit, and to take the time to work it out.

I laughed with her that I’m probably having a mid-life crisis but that I just want to lean into that. In the most beautiful, selfless, loving kindness she said she supported me.

How does this feel? It feels ‘right’… something akin to ‘congruence’ or ‘alignment’. I feel ready. I feel free and liberated, excited and energised but also raw like after you’ve been through something hard and you’re emerging on the other side. I feel sure and unusually calm in the unplanned-ness and messiness of it. I’m walking into the unknown with my head held high.

So, what is ‘the plan’? There is no plan. My dad joked ‘Plan A is to make Plan B’. I think for now I’m purposefully plan-less.

I’d like to grant myself a year-long personal sabbatical, to not focus on commercialising anything or looking for paid employment but to ‘follow my nose’ and expand, explore, experience. I will stick to process over goal. I will meet lots of people, hear lots of stories and try lots of things. I will listen. If something doesn’t feel right I won’t do it, if a decision seems hard to make I won’t make it. If I’m excited about something I will explore it, I will say yes and yes, again and again. It’s time.