The End of My Knee-ternity Leave

Funemployment /fˌənəmˈploimənt / n. A state of joblessness that triggers envy from everyone else, especially Luke.

As I write this, I am being held at gunpoint by an old nemesis from my former life—the Sunday scaries. These unwelcomed waves of intense anxiety routinely show up every Sunday, usually around 2pm. After twelve weeks of enjoying the “every day is Saturday” vibe, I had all but erased the word Sunday from my vocabulary. Time to knock some rust off.

Tomorrow marks my first day back in the workforce—thankfully, it’s a short-term gig, as I’ve only signed on to work the spring tax season. The irony of the situation is not lost on me: when I first learned I’d be getting some time off, I framed it as a chance to try out unemployment and see how it felt. Now, I find myself applying the same logic to full-time work—I’ll give it a few months and decide if I want to stick with it.

To combat the all-too-familiar feelings of workweek dread, I employ a system: the ‘weekly planning session’ (W.P.S.). A name as boring as the actual activity itself. I think of this as a weekly reset, but in reality it’s nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to trick myself into thinking I have control over my life. I rough in my calendar for the week, including all appointments and workouts. I ask myself some baseline questions about the preceding week, then jot down tasks and goals for the upcoming one. I review my Notes app for any flashes of brilliance that might deserve a patent. I catalogue any purchases that breached the rules of the monthly budget, and finish off with a sobering review of the past week’s screen time.

I knew that this first W.P.S. would need to take a different tone. In addition to the routine items and check-ins, it should also be more of a postmortem on the past three months of my life. Case in point: below is the list of the goals I set for myself at the start of my time off—I noted what I actually accomplished:

1. Enroll in CFP (Certified Financial Planner) capstone course and study for the exam Beat Hogwarts Legacy for a fourth time (Xbox)
2. Hit 135lb. on the bench press Made it to Siam (Thailand) in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (again, Xbox)
3. Start a return-to-running program Scheduled another knee surgery and restarted PT
4. Read five books Read two books—and listened to book reviews on YouTube
5. Take courses in both coding and AI Perfected an egg bites recipe
6. Attend one guitar lesson per week Tuned the guitar and played scales
7. Complete 20 hours of CPE for CPA license Completed a 1,000 piece puzzle in an afternoon

This exercise revealed a very simple truth: at present, my ambitions are miles ahead of my actual motivation. I envisioned a highly productive sabbatical, but instead, I adopted a lifestyle that resembles the love-child of Covid-19’s lockdown and the “I live in mom’s basement” aesthetic. There are two ways to view this: either I wasted my time off, or I fully enjoyed it. Honestly, I think both can be true. Maybe the “wasted” part is just the ambition talking, and the enjoyment is the reality I was avoiding. In the end, perhaps the real lesson is to just meet yourself where you’re at. Embrace the fact that doing nothing can be just as valuable as doing everything—at least for a little while. After all, I’m feeling pretty good between the ears these days.

To anyone who is curious, the rest of the W.P.S. went as follows:

1. Two PT sessions this week. Three days of lifting, two days of swimming, and morning walks before work.
2. Sleep hygiene was off last week—we really need to clean that up going forward. Focus on the bedtime routines. Prep office lunch for Wednesday/Thursday on Monday. Schedule labwork.
3. “suffering = pain x resistance”
4. Dust mite mattress cover: $153.99 / Warby Parker sunglasses: $95 / Bontrager DropLock Remote: $125.99
5. iPhone screen time daily average: 4h 19m (yuck), up 15% from previous week. Most used app: YouTube.

Additional accomplishments include: