What I Learned on Sabbatical - Part 3

What would I do without it?

How would I manage?

How would I communicate?

How would I survive?

All these questions plagued me as I prepared to leave house and home for a month last summer.

Was I going to miss my dog?

Sort of.

Not really.

Was I going to miss my daughter?

For sure, but I knew I’d see her a couple of times.

What I really wondered if I could live without, pathetically, was the internet. Because the place we rented didn’t have wi-fi. Can you imagine? And the 3G service up north was spotty at best. In order to check email, read blogs, update Facebook, or read a Twitter stream I’d have to go to an internet café about 15 minutes away.

The inconvenience of it all.

The first week, I went through withdrawal. I think B and I went into town three or four times that week, all under the guise of needing something at the grocery store, but as we were walking to the car we’d throw in our laptops with a comment like, “Well, as long as we’ll be in town, we might as well check email.”

Yeah. Sure.

The second week, I’m pretty sure my eye was twitching, but we probably only went to town a couple of times to check email. And I started to notice that there weren’t that many emails to check.

Popularity has never been a problem in these parts.

By the third week, B had figured out that he could at least look at his emails on his phone, even though he wasn’t answering them. His work phone offers Verizon which, as we quickly learned, has much better coverage up north than AT&T, which my phone uses. So B could just take a quick glance at his emails without having to go to town.

I suppose, if I was desperate, I could have asked him to check my email for me on his phone at the house. But you know what started to happen by week three? I wasn’t that desperate. Oh, sure, I stopped by the café once or twice, but there wasn’t that much of interest waiting for me – either in my in-box or on Facebook. (I’ve never loved Twitter, so that really wasn’t a temptation at all.)

And, you’ve probably guessed by now, that by week four I had completely unplugged. No going to town. No checking email. No updating Facebook. None of it.

You know what the best part was? I stopped caring.

I knew that by the end of our sabbatical, during which I did not update my blog, my readership would have declined from very little to basically nothing, so I didn’t even bother to check to see how many people had visited me. The great thing was, it didn’t matter to me.

We had had an amazing month away from it all—email, Facebook, blogs, work—and I felt refreshed, relaxed, and completely unplugged for the first time in years. And it felt good! For someone who enjoys social media as much as I do, that’s saying something.

I realized that I had been reading a whole lot more than I usually do. Did you see the list of books I read while we were gone?!

And so, the third and most important lesson I learned while on sabbatical is that not only had I become ever-so-slightly addicted to the internet (hush, my family!), but also that it’s really O.K., beneficial even, to unplug every now and then.

I realized that I had become much too tied to the internet and that, for me, I needed to pay attention to my IRL people. I needed to pull myself away from whatever was tying me to the internet (blogs, especially) and allow myself to be freed from it.

It’s a strange addiction, blogging, because there are so many wonderful things about it—I’ve learned so much and grown so much as a Christian as a result of blogging—but there are also some harmful things too. (Comparison trap, anyone?)

For me, unplugging for a month was a wonderful surprise. I learned that I can and should live in the here-and-now more than I do. Yes, it takes discipline to close my computer and not be tied to it all day long, but I’m a much healthier person when I do that.

You’ve probably noticed a little bit of how this has impacted me. I’m not blogging as much as I was before. In fact, it was a little bit hard for me to get back into it. I thought about quitting all together, but I don’t really want to do that. Yet.

For now, I’ve decided that I won’t let the internet rule my life. I’ll blog when I want to, and I’ll read blogs and comment on them when I have time. I’ll maintain the blogging friendships I’ve made because they’re important to me, but I’ll also try to maintain the friendships that I have right here because they’re important too.

Mostly, though, I’ll remind myself that a month went by without the internet and the world still turned. 

Beautifully, I might add.

What I Learned on Sabbatical – Part 2

I’ll admit, I was a little nervous. All that time . . . alone?

We invited our parents to spend some time with us at the lake for the first two weeks of our sabbatical. Julia was with us too. Kate came up for a few days. The first two weeks kept us busy and happy with family.

But the second two weeks? Everyone had gone home, Julia was at camp across the lake, and we were completely and utterly alone.

Aside from a few vacations, which were wonderful, my husband and I had never spent two, uninterrupted weeks together in almost 20 years. Twenty years! I could hardly remember what it was like to be “just us.”

I wondered what we would talk about for two weeks. Did we even have anything in common besides the kids?

I wondered if he would give me the space and freedom I had become accustomed to, or would he want to spend every minute glued to my side?

And, yes, I wondered if he’d be chasing me around with “that look” in his eyes for two weeks. Help me!

Let me just say that my fears were entirely unfounded, and I learned a valuable lesson: The empty nest is going to be just fine.

Truth be told, the beginning of our time alone was a little quiet. I missed the kids. I missed the noise. I missed the activity.

But we quickly settled into a routine that looked something like this:

6:00 a.m. – B got up and went outside (he just does that). He would either go fishing or for an early-morning bike ride or sometimes just sit on the dock drinking coffee. The guy doesn’t sleep much.

7:30 a.m. – I’d roll out of bed, looking for coffee.

8:00 a.m. – I would start my work—either writing or lesson planning.

9:00 a.m. – B would come in looking for a second breakfast.

9:05 a.m. – Upon finding no breakfast, B would make it himself.

10:00 a.m. – Sick of studying, I’d get up and take a walk or a bike ride. Or maybe a shower.

Noon – lunch, usually on the dock, in the sun.

The afternoon would find us lying on the dock, in the sun, reading until we fell asleep. You should have seen our savage tans.

By around 4:30 or 5:00 we’d get dressed, maybe have a glass of wine (still on the dock), and try to decide where we’d like to eat dinner. Or maybe we'd take a drive to see what kind of crazy-and-unusual Northwoods culture we could find.

I know. Life was rough on sabbatical.

The great thing was, B and I never got tired of each other, probably because we gave each other space to do what we wanted to do. We didn’t have to spend every waking moment together, but the waking moments that we did spend together were fun. Relaxing and fun.

And you know what? We had plenty to talk about. Of course we talked about the girls, but we talked about other stuff too—ministries we’re involved with, our jobs, the future. You know, stuff.

At the end of our “alone time” I realized something really important: after 26 years, I still love hanging out with my husband. He’s just the right guy for me. He puts up with a lot, he listens to my stories (over and over again), and he still likes to be with me. Oh sure, we have our differences; what couple doesn’t? We don’t focus on those—we focus on the things that make us better people.

Our nest will be empty in just five short years, and we’re already starting to think about what that will look like. After these two weeks together I know one thing: it’s going to be just fine.

Because after 26 years (31 by then), we still like each other. And that, in itself, is a gift.

What I Learned on Sabbatical - Part 1

Yesterday I had a headache all day. I woke up with it, taught two classes with it, and went to bed with it. It could have been hormones, or it could have been a lack of caffeine, I’m not sure, but there it was, my constant companion yesterday. A dull throbbing that reminded me of the obligations and time constraints of this life we’re living right now.

It’s a good life. I’m not complaining. But it’s sure a different life than the one I was living on Long Lake this summer.

Now that our days have returned to “normal” and “routine,” now that the weather is turning and I’m starting to think about fall, and now that our tans are fading (so sad!), it just seems fitting to reflect on our summer a little bit.

Ahhhhh, summer. Ahhhhh, sabbatical. I miss you so.

I learned a thing or two this summer, oh yes I did, and I thought, rather than forgetting these important matters, it might be a good idea to write them down. So over the next few days I’ll be sharing three important lessons I learned this summer.

Let’s start with what should have been obvious to me all along, but what was probably the most glaring lesson that needed to be learned.

Lesson 1: My husband needs outdoor time.

Like I said in a previous post, B was like a little boy, running in and out the door all day long. He was happy this summer in a way I had not seen him in a long time, if ever. And I realized that this, nature, is where he is most in his element, most like himself.

Not sitting around a boardroom table. Not behind his computer. Not behind a desk or running a meeting or meeting with clients. All these things he does on a regular basis, but after this summer I am more and more convinced that he could happily leave those things behind tomorrow.

What really feeds his soul is being outside. Fishing. Paddling. Biking. Anything as long as he doesn’t have to report to anyone or have anyone report to him.

I should have known this about my husband. In the 26 years that we’ve been married, his favorite vacations have been those few (very few, I’m sorry to say) vacations in which he’s had ample opportunity to just be out in nature.

Sadly, we’re different in this. I like cities, villages, towns, highways and byways. I like exploring back alleyways and seeing new things. Nature? I could take it or leave it (especially the bugs!).

But B? He NEEDS it. He’s been a good sport all these years, tagging along on my adventures. But what he really needs is downtime . . . outside.

My biggest takeaway? Get the boy outside more! Especially as his job becomes more demanding and he feels pressure from all sides, he will feel loved and nurtured if I allow him to be where he’s most himself—in nature.

What does that mean? I’m not sure. Maybe it means I’ll just send him outside more, like his mom did when he was little. (ha!) Or maybe we’ll have to be more intentional about taking his kind of vacations more often. Or maybe he will just have to say “yes” a little more often when guys invite him to go hunting.

Whatever the case, it was so good to see him completely unwind while being outdoors this summer.

So I married a Nature Boy. Who knew?