So it wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did, and I don’t feel bad about it at all. I ended up taking most of 2025 off. The initial plan was Q1. That dragged into Q2 as spring arrived and there just seemed better things to do with my time. Then summer arrived and I was still enjoying the time off and as much as I promised myself that when we came back from our Cornwall holiday in July that I would start looking for work and find a temp job immediately just earn some pocket money, it wasn’t until late September that I really started looking for anything in earnest.
I had a few interviews, and more than a few ‘you’re too experienced’ and quite a few ‘we’ve gone with someone with more direct and relevant experience/more closely aligns with the role’ type refusals but eventually it came down to two serious contenders, and (thankfully) I was offered a role and started in November.
So 10 months off. Blooming lovely. Okay, yes, it came at great expense (bills still needed to be paid) and I didnt really change any spending habits so money, as it tends to do, slowly but surely left my lovely little savings account and disappeared into god knows what (food, drink, holidays, more drinks.. etc etc) but what the hell, it was worth it. I would thoroughly recommend everyone take the occasional sabbatical and just enjoy some extended time off as it can be both invigorating, rejuvenating, restful and insightful. And fun. Don’t forget fun.
All that said, it wasn’t wholly my experience this time around and maybe I’ll get into that another time, but lets just say not all my contemplating was useful, productive, or even positive. I spent quite a while over the months considering some life choices I’ve made a long the way and part of that lead to questions like ‘what would I do differently’, ‘who have I let down’, ‘friends I have I let go that I shouldn’t have’, and the big old questions like ‘who am I’ and ‘what makes me happy’.
I can say now with no major spoiler alerts that I came up with no good answers to any of the above and that for the most part – I like who I am! But there were some serious thoughts going through my heads at various points of the year!
Talking of my head, it’s time to talk about the most important thing to happen this year: Project Hair.
I’ve never had long hair, ever. I’ve done short back and sides most of my life and since 2013, just before we went travelling, I’ve generally just buzz cut my hair down to grade 2. During a slightly drunken conversation late last year I made a throw away humous comment to a friend about growing a pony tail… Well, I sobered up but the idea stuck and so all year I’ve been letting my hair grow. I’ve had two trims to give it some kind of order, the first of which was a little more severe than planned, but its been an interesting/annoying/frustrating/fun journey!
They say a picture paints a thousand words, so lets give that a try…
What do you think?
steveslaw 