This is the first week in about 21 years that I haven’t had a job to go back to.
I’ve changed roles plenty of times, but I’ve almost never stopped. One job would end on a Friday, the next would start on a Monday. Even holidays never fully disconnected me, there was always a return date, a backlog, a sense of things waiting patiently in the background.
This gap feels different.
What surprised me most wasn’t stress or panic. It was calm. No inbox quietly filling up. No problems queueing. No feeling that I was borrowing peace from a future version of myself who’d have to pay it back later.
A few days into this break, I heard someone say that most people who think they want to quit don’t actually want to quit — they just need real rest. Not a long weekend. Not a forced holiday spent keeping one eye on Slack. Actual space.
That landed for me. Not as permission to disengage, but as permission to recalibrate.
I’ve been using this time to write, think, spend time in the garden, and give proper attention to things I normally squeeze into the margins. It doesn’t feel like stopping. It feels like sharpening.
I wrote a longer piece reflecting on what this pause has felt like, why it’s unfamiliar, and why it matters — especially for people who’ve been moving continuously for years.
👉 Read the full post on my blog: The First Real Pause
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