Career Break Journey

Recently, I was selected to be part of a committee to review and select high school senior applicants for college scholarships focusing on academic performance and financial need. While reviewing the essay portion of the application, two things stood out to me. ANXIETY. Many of the applicants wrote about anxiety at varying levels. It was heartening to see students talking about anxiety without shame or stigma.  On the flip side, has anxiety become so openly discussed and claimed that it is being used to label more innocous things such as shyness or lack of confidence? Did not we all go through some form of anxiety while growing up? Especially with all the hormones and unwritten rules of high school social hierarchy that consumes kids, who have absolutely no perspective on how large the world is if they are only able to see beyond their daily routine. Or, is the omnipresence of social media highlighting a glossy and filtered reality creating a pressure cooker environment for kids wh...

School vacation weeks drain me. My day no longer belongs to me.  My schedule revolves around someone else's schedule. Since I am not working, I feel obligated to handle pick-up and drop-off for camps, as well as spending the day with my daughter when there is no camp.  I love my daughter. I love spending time with her and we have fun when we have the day to ourselves.  But, I do not love having my life revolve around her.  I get lost when my day is molded and morphed to fit her schedule. I feel adrift with no aspirations of my own. Work was a steadying force, providing me a role that did not revolve around my daughter.  Even if I took a few days off to spend with my daugther during school vacation, work was in the background to steady and remind me that other people, besides my daughter, are relying on me. Without it, only my daughter is relying on me. Why does that not feel enough? Why does it make me feel so empty?

Top Ten Things I DON'T Miss About Work: 1. People talking about their weekends during Monday meetings when nobody really cares 2. Meetings with no agenda and no point 3. People who 'Reply All' to an email chain that should have stopped 10 emails ago 4. Twenty-somethings that 'totally relate' and draw comparisons to your years of experience 5. Pontificating and making an insightful comment before realizing that you are still on mute 6. Knowing that the report or analysis will not have an impact on the decision but not being able to be half-assed about it 7. Rolling your eyes when someone comments on how the PowerPoint presentation has different fonts throughout the deck (yet totally agreeing on the inside) because you don't want to be THAT anal retentive and control freak person 8.  Getting pinged at 2:01 to see if you are still planning to attend the meeting that started a minute ago 9. Being naive in my early 20s and pinging someone at 2:01 to see if they are s...

"Bonjour," a woman says, entering the room. "Je m'appelle Cece." Inspired by a recent trip to Paris, I signed up for beginning French classes at the Adult Education Center.  I had visions of spending a month in a small French village, waking up each morning to get a coffee and baguette, throwing out 'Bonjour's left and right. I would converse with the local shop keepers, charming them so that they realized that not all Americans are bombastic and uncouth. I would eat simple but magnificent meals, and wile the days away in a beautiful French garden. I know, a very unique dream. Imagine: Entering the store, charming the workers in French, and leaving with a baguette under one arm, waving à beintôt with the other. The teacher is a French native. Her outfits are the highlight of each class. She had lived in America for over ten years but is distinctly French in her style of dress.  She always has a scarf on, and it never seems weird or awkward, like when I t...

It has been a year and a half since I quit my job. It has been a glorious year and a half.  I have had a chance to explore other interests, including becoming a Team Associate for a non-profit initiative.  We had our first meeting yesterday over Zoom and the topic of conversation was how Zoom had been down earlier. More interesting than Zoom: Louis Tomlinson and  Zara McDermott. "I didn't know if it was just me," someone said. "I had to cancel all my afernoon calls," another participant said. I wanted to laugh and say, "Suckers! I used to be just like you!" How many calls have I been on when an application, whether Teams or Salesforce, has been down and the news of the day, fervently discussed at the beginning of every meeting.  Today, the news of the day for Anglophile me is when there is finally a picture of the Love Island star together with her new beau, a former One Directioner. Now, as the incomparable Bonnie Raitt would say, that is something to...