It's been a couple of months since I hung up my corporate citizen hat and chose to take some time off. I've never left a job without another one waiting for me right out the door, and it's been a brand new experience getting used to the quiet and this new pace of life. As much as I'd like to say work doesn't define who I am, the truth is that one's sense of purpose is heavily wrapped around in one's professional identity. How could it not, for all of the amount of time and space we give to work—especially when I've been lucky enough to have worked at places and with people who made me feel I belonged.
Without the constant stimulus of calls, meetings, emails, and pings that made me feel "needed," I've had to sit down and get reacquainted with me, myself, and I. It was really hard, and still is. There were days I had done all the things by 10am (getting to the dentist, doing school drop-off, breaking down all of those cardboard boxes, reorganizing my closet, catching up on the latest podcasts...) and buzzing with a sense of doing something useful. I needed to find some new ways to dispense my time, attention, and energy, including getting comfortable with doing less.
Care
I've been doing more to take care of myself and those who matter most to me. And care comes in a lot of different forms.
First, I started digging into my health and well-being. Turns out there's a lot to learn about how one's body and mind change when in mid-40s, plus, a bunch of "maintenance" work to be done if you don't want stuff to break down. I know this about my car but the car used to get more regular and thorough check-ups than I did. So now, I practically live at my primary care physician's office, checking off things on my list that I've been willing to live with and "work around" (hi perimenopause) rather than taking the time to understand and address. I'm fortunate enough to have access to good healthcare in my time off and using the heck out of it. I want to live a good life in a healthy body as long as I'm here.
I've also started to go to pilates more often. It's the only workout I've ever been able to consistently stick to, because there's a great studio within a walking distance, with a teacher who challenges me firmly and lovingly. For 60 minutes at a time, I can quiet the noise in my head, because every move requires utter concentration to get the position and alignment right. I've now met muscles in my own body I'd never known, plus flexibility and strength that make me feel stronger than I ever did in my 20s. I can feel it while walking up and down all of those steep hills in San Francisco, and it's nice to be able to feel "solid" in one's own body.
I'm trying to help my family eat better, too. My husband and I took a stroll in Noe Valley the other day and picked up a couple of vegetarian and vegan cookbooks from Omnivore Books on Food. We aren't vegetarian or vegan, but I want to see if I can make veggies the main dish. Good food can take time to plan, prep, and make, and I used to opt for the easiest and fastest way to put food on the table. Now I have the time to wait for things to marinate, simmer, and roast, and read a book while waiting and keeping my impatience at bay. I'm enjoying these experiments and sticking to seasonal ingredients, putting sticky notes on each page with what I'm learning along the way. And someday, when work re-enters our life, I'll know what to skip and substitute when making these recipes in batches ahead of a busy week.
Connections
One of the best things about making life and work transitions is that it creates reasons for people to reach out. I've heard from people near and far, old friends and new acquaintances, counting time in the ages of our children and the differences in our hairstyle (or lack there of). These conversations help me "scratch the itch" that is of wanting to be useful to other people, now without the day-to-day context of work. Something always comes up in these chats, where we're both going through similar things, or one of us has insights and wisdom from the past that can shed some clarity to the other person's next step. They say knowledge is power, and in this case, it's the know-how of the people who've lived through stuff—sometimes really tough things—and their willingness to generously share their experience that open up your minds. Talking to other people who've seen and known you at various times and context is both a reminder of things that will always be a part of you, as well as how far you've come. And meeting new people in my free, exploratory, untethered yet grounded context is a catalyst for all of the possibilities ahead and how I might make the most of what's to come.
Creativity
I've been seeking creativity in many different shapes and forms. This is one of the ways I'm finding joy and betting on myself, because there's motion, emotion, and imagination in creativity, and all three are key ingredients to originality. Creativity, much like care, takes many different shapes and forms:
Cooking, for example, is a highly creative "output" for me, because even as I consult cookbooks, I improvise and experiment quite a bit every step of the way, all the way to plating. I'm not looking to be a professional chef but I like trying different things to make my food look and taste great.
Reading, on the other hand, is a form of creative "input." In general, I read multiple books at a time, skipping between fiction to non-fiction, and following whatever I'm craving at any given moment. This habit appeals to my tendency to chase connections between different concepts, or how something completely unrelated can spark new ideas when marinated over time. By the way, when I say reading, holding physical books in my hand is a critical part of this experience, because a part of the fun is choosing books by their cover art, smell of the paper, and font type. The form and function of the object that is a book matters to me just as much as the substance of what's in the book itself, and I am often grazing the titles at our local bookstores, hunting for the one that's been waiting for me.
Talking to people whom I consider creative has been another fun "input," either because they are working in creative industries or I've seen them make decisions or actions that were ingenious, different, bold, and new. People have been generous with their time sharing with me what creativity means to them, how it manifests in their day-to-day, and what they do to instigate and nurture it.
Writing has become a more private form of creative "output" lately. You should see the number of notebooks piled high on my desk, each with many thoughts started, stopped, and then started again. I forced myself to write this today, because I want to write more publicly again. Sometimes letting half-formed ideas out there as a question brings back new ways to carry them forward.
Using and noticing AI in life more vs. AI at work. This probably requires a whole other conversation, but suffice it to say, it's been interesting to experience and observe how other people (like my doctors) are using these new tools in their day-to-day, what they're finding easy and helpful vs. not, and how I am finding myself dabbling with one tool vs. another in these everyday activities. The "why" behind the "what" of these choices and behaviors make me think about the implications for the choices and behaviors of those who are building and marketing these new models, products, and services. Being in touch with real people and the world in which they live is at the heart of your ability to do your job well as a product or marketing leader, and yet it's incredibly easy to lose sight when you're also managing through a living organism of the organization you work within. I'm using this time to "unlearn" some of my own assumptions and behaviors, and exercising my mind to stretch the space between the novel and the routine (see what I did there) as far and widely as possible.
I'm noticing there's a lot of physicality and tactile aspects to the forms of care, connections, and creativity I've been pursuing. I'm also recognizing that as rewarding and productive as many of these activities have been, I've likely been filling up my time and staying "busy" to avoid doing less, and scarier yet, just sitting with my own thoughts. I may still be where Amy Hwang hilariously captured in her New Yorker cartoon "Time to Relax" in October 2024, trying to relax but not really. It's a work in progress.