A break has arrived, and I can feel my whole body exhale.
Outside, the leaves are doing what they do every year. They let go, a few at a time at first, then in great golden drifts that gather in the corners of the garden and along the path to the gate. Nothing about it looks like effort. The tree isn’t trying to be finished before Christmas. It simply lets go of what it no longer needs to carry, and settles in for the slower months.
I’ve been thinking about that this week.
Worklife has been full in the best way. New routines have bedded in, familiar faces have grown, and there’s a confidence in the room that wasn’t there in September. But I’ve also noticed the quiet tiredness that arrives around now, the kind that isn’t about any one thing. It’s the accumulation of a hundred small decisions, a hundred small kindnesses given out, and a to-do list that has quietly refilled itself every time I thought I’d reached the bottom.
I used to push through this point. A break would arrive and I’d see it as a chance to catch up, to tick off the things that hadn’t fitted in, to get ahead so the next stretch would feel easier. It never did. The list always found a way to grow back.
This year I’m trying something different. I’m letting the break be slow on purpose.
That means mornings without an agenda. A walk with no destination, where the only goal is to kick through a few piles of leaves and see what the light is doing. A pot of tea that goes cold because I got lost in a book. Time with my family that isn’t squeezed in around everything else, but sits right in the middle of the day where it belongs.
It also means putting the laptop away and trusting that the emails will still be there, and that nothing important will fall apart because I stepped back for a few days. That last part is the hardest. But I’ve noticed that the things which truly matter rarely need me at 8pm on a Tuesday evening.
There’s a quiet belief many of us in caring professions carry around, that rest has to be earned. That we can only stop once everything is done, everyone is looked after and the list is clear. And because that moment never arrives, we never quite stop.
Autumn tells a different story. The trees don’t rest because they’ve finished. They rest because it’s time, and because what comes next, the new growth in spring, depends on it. The pause is not a gap in the work. It’s part of the work.
So I’m giving myself permission to stop before I’m finished, because I won’t ever be finished.
When we return, I’d love to come back a little lighter than I left. Not with a perfectly organised desk or a fully cleared inbox, but with a bit more spaciousness. A slower first response. A clearer sense of what really needs my attention and what can drift away like the leaves.
I’ll let you know how I get on.
For now, I’m off to find a good pile of leaves.
If you’re heading into a break too, whether it’s a week or just a long weekend, I hope you let yourself drift a little. What are you ready to let fall?
