The Career Break Chronicles #1

It’s hard to believe it’s been a month since we returned to Lisbon. Time is moving paradoxically fast and slow. The last four weeks have flown by, yet it feels like an age since I set foot in my corporate office, walked my usual route to work, sat on the beach outside our flat, lived the countless daily patterns that made up my life at home. Yet, so far, I don’t miss it as much as I thought I would.

I’m always one to be cautiously optimistic about things – keep your expectations low so you won’t be disappointed. An infallible strategy! As mentioned in my previous posts, it turns out that strategy just makes you more anxious, so I’m trying optimism (read: delusion) instead. It’s a work in progress. And honestly, so far, my time in Lisbon has gone better than expected.

Creating routines

One of the things I was concerned about was filling my time. I’ve never not had a job, or not been studying, or been without some kind of structure to build the rest of my life around. I was slightly worried that not having that would send me into some kind of prolonged, melancholy state of overthinking. But, pleased to report that hasn’t happened, and I haven’t completely lost the plot yet.

Routines have emerged both unconsciously and with sustained effort. I’ve been trying hard to keep myself busy – attending meet ups, events, language classes, hanging out with the friends we do have here. There’s a comfort in having regular events in your calendar, my hypothesis also being that you’re more likely to make friends if you keep showing up to things repeatedly.

I’m proud that I’ve attended every event I said I was going to. Though it turns out the hard part isn’t in the trying out – it’s continuing to turn up even when the novelty is gone and you’d rather just rot in front of Netflix.

Other routines have emerged naturally. Going for runs around the neighbourhood in the morning because it’s been hot (and it takes the edge off a day spent mostly at home). My regular walk to the language school or writing meet up. Buying food from Lidl. Getting my cheap pao queijo for lunch at Pingo Doce. Studying in the park because the weather’s been beautiful the last few weeks. To nobody’s surprise, it’s a LOT easier being unemployed when the sun’s out.

My friend said I’d get used to the empty days, and he was right. I’m finding it easier to fill the hours with work on my side hustle, job research, language study, writing, switching between these projects intuitively rather than forcing myself to work on them in allotted timeframes. It’s been about trusting the process and trusting myself to figure it out.

Making connections

This just in: I’ve actually made friends!

I’ve been proactive about it, but even so, there’s something about being in an international city like Lisbon. It’s full of people trying to build something, who are dynamic and proactive and up for anything. I’m not saying there aren’t people like that in my hometown, because there definitely are, but the concentration of these people in a city is inevitably higher.

Once again, I’m keeping my heart open and my expectations low. My prior experience living abroad has taught me that transience is the price you pay for living in international communities. That said, there were ebbs and flows in my hometown too – people moving away, getting tied up in family life and work. While transience is an inevitable part of life, it’s more acute somewhere like here.

Still, in addition to our existing friends here, we’ve made friends with another couple who recently moved to the city and I’ve befriended a French girl around my age. We went to a cacao ceremony on Saturday - it was ridiculous and I loved it.

Something that has become clearer to me, and which I didn’t expect, is my relationship with my partner. I was slightly concerned that such a move would make our relationship fraught, particularly if one of us was enjoying it significantly less than the other. But so far, that hasn’t happened.

I’m doing a lot of things without him, funnily enough, and yet this experience has so far brought us closer, made us more connected as we try to build and plan for our future. I’m starting to see him as my family in a way I didn’t quite before, which I suppose happens when you transplant yourselves into a new community as a pair. It’s made me realise how much this person is baked into my life, my being, my nervous system, my sense of self, and how much harder my life would be without him. The thought is both wonderful and a little confronting.

Push and pull

I’m so happy to be here. I’m so grateful I stopped playing it safe in my hometown and took a leap of faith, wherever it leads.

I agonised SO MUCH about leaving. But interestingly, so far I don’t miss home or my job as much as I thought I would. Some days, the notion of going back to my hometown and job after this year fills me with dread. Other days, the structure, community and convenience of it is appealing. My feelings about it change like weather, but one thing is constant - a sense that being here is more expansive, more challenging, more agentic than what I was doing before.

There’s also been an internal tension between wanting to kick back, live my best and just enjoy being here, versus feeling the need to optimise my time – networking, learning Portuguese, trying to figure out my next career and life step. There’s a sense of time pressure. This year feels like an opportunity that won’t come again (though it may well do, if in a different form). I’m learning to balance these conflicting feelings and go easy on myself, trusting the process and detaching from the outcome (still learning how to do this - anyone have any tips?!)

At this moment, both my partner and I feel like we’d like to be in Lisbon for at least a couple of years to really bed in. But practical concerns – i.e. money and having a job – may force our hand anyway. There’s no way of knowing yet.

It’ll be interesting to see how things evolve over the year. But so far, a strong start!

Rose :)