Taking a Sabbatical

content warning: death

A year ago, I had a living mother, I had a living cat, and I had a job. Right now, I only have a job, and in one month, it too will cease to exist. I will be left—as I have found my self so many times this year—facing a vacuum in the shape of something so familiar, and picking up the pieces of my life that were shattered when it collapses. If this year could stop with all of the destroying things I love, that would be super.

I am burnt out.
I am tired.

Taking a Sabbatical

Sometime in November, I realized that I am not going to have a job at the beginning of the year. I also understood that this time is a rare opportunity for me to be intentional and take a step back to focus on my health. With everything that has happened this year, I know that I need a sabbatical. I know that I need time to process everything that has happened and seriously consider what my future will look like before I join the more than 300,000 tech workers who are looking for new jobs after layoffs.

That all being said, I will not be taking on or seeking any new work projects until March 2024. From January to March, I will be taking care of myself, improving my (at the moment very rusty) Korean, and learning packaging in Python and Rust.

I am grateful for all the support that I’ve gotten from everyone over the last year through all of the difficult times.

The Year that Swallowed Everything

It’s March, two days before my cat turns 18. He can no longer stand with his hind legs. He is no longer is eating. We put him to sleep the next day.

It’s mid-April, I start a coordinated effort to smoothly transition more than 50 lesson repositories to use a project I had poured all of my energy into. This transition directly affects over a hundred volunteers and indirectly, thousands. I push myself to work overtime because I know that I will be able to relax and celebrate later.

It’s mid-May, I reached a major milestone of transitioning all of the official lessons. The same morning I finish the last lesson, I was informed by email that there was no longer funding to retain my position through to 2024. I am now responsible for maintaining the project through December, heavily documenting the maintenance workflow, and training three of my colleagues in R package development and maintenance.

It’s mid-June, after a company retreat to discuss a future I could not be a part of, I get COVID.

It’s July, I get a call from the emergency room. My mother had a stroke and has aphasia. I make an emergency flight down. She recovers most of her speech in a week. I return home.

It’s mid-September, I have a really good third-round interview for a job that fits well with my experience. A few days later, I find out that the job went to a friend of mine (who absolutely deserves it). I am happy for him, but it is nevertheless bittersweet.

It’s September 27th at 9:43 in the morning. I announce on Mastodon that I am in search of a new job. I feel good about this. It was a post thread like this that landed me my current position, which I’ve had for almost 4 years. A few minutes pass. I get a call from the emergency room. By the afternoon, I find that my life is going to change once again.

It’s mid-November. My partner and I are driving down OR-99W so that I can bring my mother’s ashes to her final place of rest. The morning is cold as the sun breaks through the gentle fog that has settled over the forest to create a stunning komorebi (木漏れ日). As we walk back to the car, my bag is lighter than it was when we entered.

It is the end of November. Grief washes over me occasionally, but I’ve got my raincoat. I come to an acceptance of my fate at the end of the year. I decide to take a sabbatical. At work, we receive an all-staff email saying that 6 more of us are to be laid off at the end of the year. The raincoat doesn’t work very well in the atmospheric river of newfound grief.

As I write this, I know that everything will be okay in the end, but it’s going to take time to heal from the constant deluge of psychic damage I’ve taken this year. To those who have made it this far, I promise that my next post will not be such a downer.