Author: ben.ciani

So its been thirty days since I last went up to work and so much as changed in that time. I feel different and yet feel like nothing has happened or changed. So much excitement and growth have happened over the last 30 days I don’t fully know how to describe it. I feel that looking back now I should have taken more time on the last few days to reflect on the whole journey I was going thru.

A little recap and ramble on about my adventure seem to be the best way to help myself attempt to evaluate everything that happened and the growth I experienced.

Week one I got a strong lesson in humble patience as I prepared for the wedding. Which surprise surprise the week ended in a very successful wedding with only minimal cake smashing. Thankfully I do not have any photos of that currently. Afterwards, I got tasked with preparing the honeymoon. I figured out all the details and not to toot my own horn too much but I think I did a great job at surprising Chelsea and treating her since she did so much work and planning for the wedding itself. This week had so much and strangely enough a lot of opposites it was weird. By that I mean the first part of the week I was a follower and had to learn to let others order me around and trust in their plan and vision. At the end, I had the opposite role as Chelsea had to trust my blind instructions and prep that the honeymoon was going to go smoothly and that I didn’t forget something.

Week two was pretty different compared to the other ones. This week was our honeymoon and I don’t know if I learned much as most of the time was just spent alone or with Chelsea relaxing on a cruise ship. We did get a lot of opportunities to learn more about ourselves and each other. We pushed each other outside our normal comforts and that was an interesting thing to get over our little hold-ups. I also took this time to start reading which as a note made me feel a lot smarter/cooler when I was reading on a balcony overlooking the ocean.

Week three was finally a chance initially to just relax and do absolutely nothing. Being one of the few times I was truly free without a schedule I took this opportunity to embrace the joy of freedom and didn’t schedule or plan anything out. If something came up I would go and do it and my day went just randomly. It was weird and I did enjoy just enjoying the day as it was presented but felt really out of my comfort zone doing absolutely no planning. The week ended back to my normal-ish way of having some decent planning. I spent the weekend in DFW and back home in Sherman. I was able to volunteer at the Muckfest for MS and spent the entire day running around attempting to look like I know what I was doing while helping people. Afterwards, that evening was my mothers surprise birthday party where my siblings and I all showed up in Sherman without her knowledge. It was great spending time with my folks and my siblings just like when we were all little.

Week four was initially planned to be a repeat of last week with me spending some time with friends and by myself to relax, reflect and enjoy the last few days of freedom. It did start out like that initially but quickly changed as what started as a normal week ended with a lot of excitement and is bringing with it a lot of lessons and stress. Chelsea and I took this time to start looking for a house and have been looking for some time. Although we don’t have a house picked out yet we have started to eliminate houses down to a short list of finalist and are “enjoying” the whole process that is home buying. And silly me underestimating the work and stress this does has been a “joyous” event so far.

All in all, I’m so very glad and blessed I was given this opportunity to go on this sabbatical journey. I will admit as shocking as it might be I am glad to be going back to work as I was getting a little stir crazy missing my common routine and daily schedules. I’m so excited to see all of my friends faces some of whom I haven’t spoken to in over a month. During my time off I became somewhat of a recluse and took the time to be anti-social in a way and focus on myself, immediate family and goals I had for this time. Im sure I’ll want to retract the previous statements shortly after waking up tomorrow early for the first time in thirty days.

Its crazy how fast time has flown by during the past few days and yet still seems to be plenty of time left to enjoy. Since my last post, I’ve been doing some more reading and just relaxing around the house. I’m not for sure how to describe how I feel because I’m not for sure how I feel being off. In a way, being such a recent college graduate it feels like just another summer vacation, especially since I start grad school in the spring. On the other hand, it feels so much more than that looking back at all the things I’ve accomplished and lives that have touched me and hope that I have touched many of them. I don’t really know how to give this time the proper description anymore having finally experienced it.

With a little under a week to go, I think now its truly see how amazing, rare and somewhat weird this opportunity has been for me. Going into this I didn’t know what to expect and here 3 weeks in, still not for sure how to feel entirely. I feel like I’m going a bit stir crazy now, the first two weeks were relatively busy but now I haven’t done much. I’ve actually been actively looking for work around the house;  from laundry to organizing random sections of the house, I’m sure Chelsea loves it but I think I’m losing it.

As my sabbatical continues I realize how great it has been to have so much free time and to be able to use that time to bond and help others. This past weekend was busy, exciting and oh so tiring!

The weekend started off as I volunteered for the Muckfest event hosted by the MS society. It is a massive mud run similar to that of the mud run put on in Abilene for AYSA. The day for it was cold starting at 8 am at 40 degrees and ending around 4 at 50 degrees. Thankfully as bad as that sounds I was running around enough to be glad it was that cold. At the event, I was given the job as special ops captain so I would be dragged all over the event to help in areas as needed. The best part about that role was being able to talk and interact with so many people as the day went on.

Also, this weekend was my mother’s 60th birthday party. My sisters and I got together to surprise her and we all came up to take her out to dinner. Somehow she didn’t remember I was coming up after the muckfest to pick up stuff that was left there from the wedding. So it ended up being an amazing surprise when she saw all three of us arrive without any warning. It was great to hang out with my mother and family again and eat dinner together just like when we were all little.

It has been a crazy busy start to my sabbatical so far so I apologize for the late first post. First to recap the first part of my sabbatical.

Week 1

The first week was spent preparing for my wedding. I feel like being off work during that time allowed me a crash course in marriage. As Chelsea took advantage of my free time to run an endless amount of errands and prep work. Now I don’t want to take much credit and seem like a did a lot because, in reality, it was Chelsea that made it run smoothly. My “errands” were more of go pick this up or be at X spot at X time. However, during this time we were able to grow a lot closer together and ensure everything went as smoothly as possible.

Additionally, we got to see a lot of family members and friends that we haven’t seen or talked to in a while. So that was nice to catch up with everyone from high school friends to some of mine and Chelsea’s distant relatives some of which I have never personally met.

Week 2

The second week was a lot more relaxing and stressfree. With the biggest event planned for my sabbatical done and out of the way, we were able to finally relax some. This week we were able to enjoy our honeymoon. We took a cruise out of Galveston and visited both Cozumel and Progresso. It was a lot of fun spending all the time alone together and learning a lot about each other. We each forced the other to try and do thing out of the normal. For example, Chelsea is a picky eater so I forced her to try some different foods while we were on the ship. While she forced me to just relax and sit since when I’m on vacation I like to be doing something the entire time, like going to a show or swimming but always something. However a few times she forced me to just sit with her and we would lay out on the deck of the ship.

Schedule

For the next few days, I’ll be home relaxing and beginning to read the books I have chosen. I will also be going home to visit my family for my mother’s birthday and to see my sisters and nephew. The only other thing I have planned for this week is I will be up in Dallas to volunteer at the MS Muckfest. I will be sure to write about everything that goes on as they happen.