Well, 2009 did not end up being the year of savings, but it was the start of savings, which was a positive start. What that means is that now, 2 years later, I'm finally in a more realistic position to take a year leave of absence and travel the world - but it won't happen until 2012, when, if everything goes according to plan, I will actually have enough saved to keep my apartment during my travels. I think in 2009, when I first started, it was pretty unrealistic and I was spasticly flailing around looking for an escape. I guess it might not look like things have changed, but I've had two years to think about what I wanted to do and have spent that time (kinda) saving. I aways thought of the "travel the world" option to be the course of last resort, the option that would not be an option, but would be what happened when I had a full melt down. I spent a lot of time thinking that I should try to take the adult option - find a different job that will build on what I've learned at the firm and that will give me career options. But I'm either (1) too exhausted to really engage in the deliberation it takes to figure out what a realistic option would be that I would really like to do ("sarah, what DO you want to be when you grow up") or (2) am not one of those people who will ever feel passionately about what I do (not everyone is going to live to work). Either way, the end result is that while I've spent a lot of time thinking about my next step, I haven't actually spent any time apply to jobs or getting close to leaving this one (which then makes me feel guilty for not taking charge of my own destiny, which brings me down and compounds the feelings of helplessness and futility that I feel at work - the lovely endless cycle of self-criticism, self-doubt and self-loathing.
What I've recently come to accept is that what I really want to do is travel. See more of the world. Take the time to get out of the relatively toxic environment at the firm, re-charge, see what other options are out there.
It wasn't easy to get here. It required getting over myself and the idea that this was the easy way out or the self-indulgent choice. Also that I wasn't taking a next "successful" step that sounded impressive. Getting over the idea that people would think that I'm dropping out, not living up to my potential, or becoming a cliche. So many people in similar positions to me have taken this option, so I'm not even being particularly original. Plus, it smacks of upper-middle class malaise: "poor me, I've been working for five whole years and its hard. I feel stressed and over-burdened. I don't have to worry about the basics of life - putting a roof over my head, food on my table and paying for health care - because I have a prestigious six-figure salary job. But I don't feel fulfilled and I think I deserve to feel fulfilled." There are several books on the topic (usually written by women a decade or two older than me - I don't know if that means that I'm ahead of the curve or that the curve is just speeding up). I guess its a quasi interesting phenomenon - highly educated professions are not fulfilled professionally dropping out. I guess this is one of the reasons my choice feel like a cop-out. We are smart, educated, young and hard-working. Instead of trying to change the paradigm, we are buying into it and then leaving. The boomers changed the paradaigm (or actually, probably bought into it and then co-opted the statues symbals as their own so that they found fulfillment partly from the work and partly the lives that the work allowed them to create). My generation is clearly not happy with the paradigm, and not satsified with the products (haha, literally. oh, sarah, so punny) of our labor. What should we do? Quit? Well, that's what we are doing. But we can't all drop out. How are we ever going to have careers or keep the machines running for the next generations.
Mostly, however, I'm so unhappy with what I'm doing that I don't care. I don't want to be part of the machine any more. Maybe some time off will give me some clarity so I can come back and do it more realistically. But what I'm secretly (or, now, not so secretly) hoping is that I will find another way to do it that isn't tied to a nine-to-five day and a 50 week year. Where work is more fluid with life. Where I feel alive when I'm working and not just hoping I have energy for life after my work day.
