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| At the office. Mariko made me a beautiful sign. |
There was only one start to my sabbatical – getting on a plane 10+ months ago and flying to Italy for what turned out to be an adventure of a lifetime (or at least my life so far!) There have been a few endings to my sabbatical, but Monday, the sabbatical truly ended with my return to work.
The first ending was leaving my adopted city of Firenze and heading back to Toronto. Only 6 weeks left to Sept 10 – my official “return-to-work” day. The second ending was coming back from Chicago/Saugatuck in mid-August, where I looked ahead and there were NO travel plans in my future. A kind of reverse countdown had begun – only 3 weeks before I went back to work. The third ending was Sunday night of the Labour Day weekend, when driving back from Geoffrey and David’s cottage near Kingston meant that only 1 week remained. The final ending was last Saturday night, travelling home from Cape Breton and Halilfax, where I had been for 4 days celebrating the life of my dear Aunt Margie (she lived to be 99!) Then, it was only 1 day to go.
While you might think the transition from a planned leave of absence back to full time work would be jolting, it has actually been smoother than I expected. It helped to be going back to The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre; back to my team, my office, and a truly great fundraising organization filled with exceptionally talented and dedicated people.
It also helped to have enough time between re-entry back to North America, and re-entry back to work. All the culture-shock of not being in Firenze, Italy, Europe had dissipated. I had lots of time to figure out that my morning cappuccino at my local bar was not to be had; that I needed a new gym, and the food and wine didn’t quite taste the same now. I had visited the office a few weeks back – to prove I was still alive AND coming back to work, so that gave me some time to tell stories and reconnect with my “work family.” That visit also took the edge off physically going to the office, something I was consciously avoiding.
But mostly, going back to work was relatively easy because it was the right time to go back. The few “goals” I had for my sabbatical were achieved; the summer was over; and I realized that I actually like working too much to dread the daily journey to the office. That may change, but for now, the important work of raising money to conquer cancer continues anew. It feels good to be back in the saddle.
