Living Work-Free
The euphoria hit peak intensity as I handed over my work laptop to the FedEx drop off rep. I didn’t have to work. Not for at least the next year! No more waiting hours in work calls while responding to work emails or doodling in a notebook, because if my hands are not busy, my mind runs to other things. No more conference calls shifting the volume for every speaker, alternatively cranking it up to hear a person far from a microphone and then cringing as someone too loud responds, while frantically decreasing the volume. No more Sunday afternoon dread growing into evening despair that another work week is about to begin. No more struggling to get out of bed to respond to never-ending work emails.
Instead, I assumed that I would have endless time to read all the library books accumulated on my shelves and go out exploring any time the weather was nice. In my phone was a list of activities that I wanted to participate in. All the ways that this time off could be used to explore hobbies that had been squished into corners of time, if I could escape work. New experiences to add now that my week days were free.
Yet after years of working hard and balancing that with playing hard (when possible), my expectations of being able to immediately dedicate myself took time. Was I not being productive enough while I waited impatiently for volunteer applications to process, to get evaluated for French class and fully added to sessions? During my first month off, what grounded me were the activities that I’d previously managed to squeeze in while working: running with a neighbor, salsa dancing, church, running club. Now I could add daytime activities including trail running with a friend, as well as playing with jazz and symphonic ensembles. These were my new daily anchors. I dabbled in others: participating in a nature walk, pulling up invasive species in the Don Valley, attending a library talk, helping at a food bank. Then, mid-way through my first month off, adult ice skating lessons started.
The following month, I started a weekly shift volunteering in wildlife rehabilitation. And, finally, I joined Monday-Wednesday French classes, proud to learn another of our country’s official languages as a new Canadian. My goals were lofty! Could I get to B2 French level by the end of March? In all of this, I thought that there would be sufficient time to read the still growing stack of library books on my desk, yet my reading pace did not keep up with my ever-expanding hold requests.
One of my no work goals was to cook all of my own meals and snacks. This was a chance to experiment with new recipes as well as reduce eating out to a few times a month. Yet cooking takes time. And let’s be honest, washing all those dishes seems to take even more time, although that may be because of all my stalling. New recipes begat seemingly never ending piles of dirty dishes. Why don’t basement units ever have dishwashers? Overall, though, I was enjoying eating a greater variety of food.
Over winter break, the bands, ice skating and French classes ended. With all that extra time, I accomplished far fewer things than I expected. My first project was knitting a stocking cap in a Fair Isle pattern. (It looks amazing but took way too much time to ever attempt another Fair Isle anything.) Secondly, I expected to crank out a graphic novel, but over the break it was re-imagined into a 20-page children’s storybook, which has only made it through the first draft stage of images before being set aside without a script. During this break, I went ice skating a couple of times but stopped practicing French and music altogether. Since I had no travel plans to see family, a restlessness took over without the structure of planned daily activities. Even reading had its limits.
At the beginning of my time off, I felt guilty at the end of the day if I hadn’t learned something new, as if to justify who I have always been, although never good enough to learn a living at it: a musician; an artist; a writer. My life up to this point has been so focused on checklists toward concrete goals that I’ve attempted to do the same for this year. What has fallen by the wayside over the past 20 years has become this year’s overarching goals: playing music well enough that I could actually participate in paying gigs; as well as writing, illustrating and publishing a graphic novel.
All of my time up to being laid off had been to work hard, to spend as little as I comfortably could, save/invest the extra, and hope never to have to work again whenever work would lay me off. (I worked in tech—there were always layoffs.) The chart at eye-level on my pantry door was the “Your Money or Your Life” Crossover Point chart. It showed how much I spent each month versus how much earnings I could expect from 4% of my total investment plus retirement accounts: a constant visual reminder to spend less and save more.
Now, I moved this chart down on the door and taped a habits tracker at eye-level.
A few years back, a similar chart graced my pantry but then my goals were too much for my available free time; and, I had given up. Now, I listed habits on the chart that were most important for me to keep learning and building onto. But, unlike my previous failed attempt, I made the goals more manageable. Instead of a minimum hour practicing piano, playing even one song counted as fulfilling my daily piano “habit”. Sometimes I wonder if I have an hour worth of material to practice; however, once I sit down at the piano, I completely lose track of time (probably to my landlady’s sons’ disappointment!).
A jazz band member mentioned that she was playing in a Klezmer workshop. It sounded so interesting that in mid-January, when band practices began, I traded cycling the 30 minutes to symphonic ensemble for the 30 minutes cycling to the Klezmer workshop. Klezmer was a completely new-to-me vocabulary of scales, songs and ornamentations. The engaging workshop even pushed me to start learning to play by ear! January’s new activities also included swing dance classes with a friend and city of Toronto watercolor classes.
All of these activities enriched my work-free life and got me out of the house to interact with people everyday. After six months of “retirement”, my expectations for myself changed. I am not as often plagued with guilt that I have not done enough each day. Now, I’m looking forward to summer in Toronto, especially those beautiful days when there is nothing better to do than meander around on a bicycle, lounge at the lakeshore, or hike in a park. Friends and colleagues have asked if I’ve started looking for a new job; and, I’m always surprised. “Why would anyone want to work during a Toronto summer?”
I’m giving myself more space to explore a breadth of interests before narrowing down to those in which I want to invest most of my time. As this takes shape, new roadblocks appear that send me searching for skills to surmount them. First was the watercolor class to improve my color skills for my drawings. Now, two library books on writing currently sit half-read on my desk in order to inform and encourage me to write the words for the children’s book. Even this essay is a practice in creative writing skills, which in fact has me surmounting an unforeseen roadblock: how to write and edit with only a tablet!
As a musician, I’ve tried learning in a variety of ways. The library and my jazz band conductor have provided me with a variety of books and sheet music to grow both my clarinet and piano skills. Some have been far out of my ability. I’ve learned to take a step back, find something easier and build on that, whether practicing all the 7th chord inversions or taking the opportunity listen to other musicians play, repeating interesting sections. My impatience struggles to accept how slowly I learn. Eventually, my musicality increases.
I don’t know where this enjoyable work-free year will take me. Will I have some concrete proof that I accomplished anything? It has been such a privilege to have this personally enriching time! For me it has only been possible because of a well-paying job in tech coupled with years spent living frugally. During my first voluntary layoff in 2014, I spent a couple months in Mexico improving my Spanish, then traveled across Europe, ending in Israel. Work is simply a means toward these opportunities of large chunks of time to enjoy life!
Text: Erin Blake
Design: Karlo Matt Rian Ong