I’ve been doing stuff. You don’t even know.
What kind of stuff?
Writing stuff. Life stuff. Art stuff. Traveling stuff. Helping-people stuff.
Where do I find the time?
Well, I left teaching in the summer of 2021 in order to begin what I told myself was a sabbatical of one or two years.
It’s been five.
Nearly every year I have written an entry on the state of my sabbatical: My Sabbatical at One Year, Three Years, and Four Years.
Now that it’s fall of 2026, what’s up with my sabbatical?
Okay, so yeah, it’s not technically a sabbatical. It was never the kind where you get paid to recharge the low battery of your creativity. It’s more like my wife and I, as empty-nesters, decided to move from North Carolina to Michigan to reconnect with friends and family and recharge the low batteries of our personalities.
We thought of this time as a midlife break, an oasis snuck into our fifties, a retreat from the rat race. It’s not something people do. There’s no name for this. It’s not a familiar stage of life or work. Maybe there’s a name for it in Scandinavian cultures. . . .
Okay, so there is. I looked it up.
Voksenorlov refers, in Denmark, to older workers taking temporary leave. It’s not paid. They’re on their own during this break. But it’s an accepted milestone in one’s life, should one choose to do it.
Our voksenorlov came too late to call a midlife crisis and too early to call retirement. It’s just something we chose to do. We knew if we didn’t force it, then it wouldn’t happen. So we made it happen. We packed up, drove away, and went to live with our parents.
In 2021, we were looking forward to downsizing our lives in order to upsize our mental health. We were going to reduce our responsibilities and focus on ourselves. We were going to shrug off the weighted vests of our obligations and walk with lighter steps to the rhythms of our own desires. We were going to do what we wanted to do.
Did not. Turn out. That way.
At least not exactly.
It’s been a heckuva dramatic five years.
It was absolutely great for a while, and there have been months of awesomeness. We did indeed recharge, rest, sleep, recover, and reconnect with friends and family. We did indeed pursue our arts and our crafts, our passions and our interests.
But we’ve also done what we’ve always done: help people.
Life happens. We respond.
You don’t have to respond. You don’t have to help people.
My wife and I, however, are empaths with a work ethic. In emergencies and in times of need, whether planning events or putting out fires, we leap into action. We get stuff done.
And then—no surprise—we need a break to recharge the low batteries of our personalities.
One of my main motivations for taking this time away from teaching was to write. I wanted to edit my novels, write new novels, find a literary agent, and publish a novel.
Edit novels
Write novels
Find agent
Publish novel
After I did all that, I could envision returning to teach. Maybe I could go back to teaching Language Arts in middle school or English in high school. Maybe I could return to teach writing in college. Maybe I could teach creative writing at the MFA level. Maybe I could teach writing outside the world of higher education. Maybe I could start a business.
Who knows?
The point was I wanted to finish a novel and publish it.
I’ve had five years to do this, and I’ve been very productive in the first two stages.
Edit novels: Check! I edited 5 previous manuscripts.
Write novels: Check! I wrote 6 new novels.
Find agent: Um . . .
Publish novel: Well . . .
I’ve also written several nonfiction books.
So I’ve had no problem taking advantage of these five years to write and edit.
The stage I’m in now is the one in which I query literary agents.
It’s a tough stage.
It’s tough because you have little to no power. With my novels, I can reread them, I can edit them, and I can improve them. I’m in control. With querying, I have no control. I keep trying. I keep going. I spend months researching literary agencies and rewriting my query letters.
And then I wait.
Well, no, I don’t wait. I let go of expectations. I embrace what I can control. I get back to work.
I edit a novel.
I write a novel.
I help people.
Maybe an agent will respond. Maybe none will. Whether or not one does respond, I have to take advantage of these precious years in my productive fifties:
. . . my sorta-sabbatical . . .
. . . my author’s oasis . . .
. . . my Gen-X version of voksenorlov.
So that’s where I am after five years. I seized the day to do my thing. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.
