by Lilia Efimova on January 16, 2013
With the last blogpost published more than a year ago I guess the time is right for an update. So here it is :)
Although I shamelessly stole the title of this post from a very nice book, it’s not about an extended family travel. I like how the meaning of?”sabbatical” is described in Wikipedia as “any extended absence in the career of an individual in order to achieve something”. Family sabbatical in my case is about an extended absence in the career and about a family.
And, to clarify the context a bit, I should add that my youngest daughter, Emily, was born half a year ago. I planned to blog about it, but lots of things happened then, so those of you who are not connected to me in person or on a Facebook had probably missed it. Well, it’s better late than never :)
I combined being a mother of a little kid with work long enough to find out that I didn’t enjoy the combination. I feel that’s I’ve got far enough professionally to take a break from it to focus on the other side of the equation – my family. I have no idea how long my “sabbatical” will be. I guess until I get a sense of mastery at the homefront, get bored with it or get a professional challenge hard to resist. So far it’s far from it – there is enough food for thought, challenges and learning.
I also feel that I’m about ready to get back to blogging as thinking in public, but I’m still trying to figure out the details. Given the legacy of this blog I’m not sure what would make more sense – remodeling it to fit my current interests and loosing focus (even more :) or just opening another blog and crossposting here on specific topics.
Tagged as:
no work-life balance
by Lilia Efimova on December 31, 2011
I go to Nancy’s blog to look for the Pear & Cranberry Chutney recipe to cook for tomorrow and then remember that I have a blog too and that it had been silent way too long. So here I am :)
The truth is that I feel a bit like a caterpilar in a cocoon – hiding from everyone and in a process of a transformation. I never thought that I would think of stopping blogging here – so much this blog was me. What I didn’t realise is that identities change or, to be more specific, some of those many identities in each of us take leading role for a while. Or, to be even more specific, I didn’t realise how much my professional identity was leading in my life. Untill I stopped working :)
Letting go professional identity gave time and space to all others that were also in me, hidden. It’s an interesting process to reflect on – letting go parts of your old life to give space for new things to emerge. And scary at times (enough not to write about it :)
As for the online writing – it feels funny to see how social media is getting picked up by lots of people I know and, at the same time, not to have much of the need to do it myself. I do write online – under a different nickname, mainly private and in Russian. Somehow that fits better what I need now (and helps building very different networks). Hopefully writing in Dutch will come as well (as I need it too), but I’m not there yet.
So, what I’m busy with now? All things “green” and local, sewing, house and kids, as well as alternative educational modes. There are a lot of things to write about there, although I’m not sure anymore that this blog is the right space for it (well, if you want to hear about my compost worms let me know :). The last topic would fit pretty well here, but at the moment writing about it feels a bit like writing about internal corporate issues while being employed there – it’s a thin line to navigate and I’m not there yet.
I do miss many of you with whom I connected via this space. Unfortunately letting go work also means that lots of shared activities and shared spaces where you connects with your network go to the background. So, I just send all of you my best wishes for the coming year – strength to go out of your comfort zone and time to enjoy life :)
Tagged as:
blog writing,
change,
identity
