In September, I disappear for three months. I have known this for a while now, and I still can’t quite believe it.
It is called a sabbatical. My employer offers it after five years of service — three paid months to step away, breathe, and do whatever you need to do. I worked hard for five years. And now it’s my time.
But the gift didn’t arrive empty. For five years, alongside the work, I have been dreaming — and shifting that dream. What would be meaningful? What do I actually want? What can I do that I would never do otherwise?
The answers came slowly, and then all at once.
My son will spend two of those three months with me. We planned a long, full trip — the way only the two of us can — 45 days of movement and discovery. Then we head to one of the most sacred places in Canada: an archipelago on the Pacific coast, where I plan to slow down and begin writing my memoir.
The final month I spend there alone. It will be dark. Mostly wet. I will have Bruce with me, and we will walk, and drive, and take it all in. The landlady already warned me that life on the island is like going back in time 60 years. I cannot wait.
I won’t pretend it’s all ease and excitement. There is anxiety in here too — so much still to plan, to pay for, to organize. The world feels uncertain in ways that are hard to ignore. But things are beginning to align in the quiet, reassuring way that makes you think: yes, this is meant to happen.
This week I found my pet and house sitter: single, my age, and also a writer. An angel arriving at exactly the right moment, making the expensive flights feel just a little more possible.
September is still four months away. And it is already changing everything about how I see today.
What about you — what’s waiting on your horizon that makes the ordinary days feel a little more alive?
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