Yesterday, I was lying in bed thinking.

My life has been messy lately, starting with my inability to sleep with any semblance of normality.

Couple that with not having enough money, needing it, yet not being able to find a job…and it led me to a thought:

Wow. It sure would be nice to go crazy.

You know, like padded-walls crazy. I imagined the whole thing. I’d be taken somewhere pretty; group therapy sessions in the morning, prepared meals, a piece of fruit for afternoon snack. I’d have a small room with a twin-sized bed and a little nightstand next to it. With a lamp. And a journal.

And free pens.

I’d go on daily walks in a forest. It would be very…

Monastic.

I could use it to get away. Maybe for a month. I wouldn’t have to worry about bills. Oh, man, it would be so nice.

Then, I wondered: Do people who actually go crazy know they’re going crazy? Do they plan it? Are they, on some level, aware that they are taking a hiatus from life?

(By the way, I don’t mean this to be insensitive. When I say, “crazy,” I really mean it in a kind way. Just know that.)

For me, I am aware that I’m looking for a way out. I’ve struggled trying to make things work, so a thought popped in my head, and I went with it; I allowed it to take me down an unknown path.

What’s interesting is going through the mental exercise of thinking how easy it would be to do; how easy it would be to just let go.

But once you know, it’s hard not to know that you know. You know? Once I realized that I’m just looking for a way out, I can’t pretend not to know that! I can’t pretend go-crazy.

Or can I…

It would be totally irresponsible, especially since I’m already aware of it, but that didn’t stop me wondering.

Which takes me to now.

Right now.

I don’t want to just lose it and go whacky (as entertaining an option that might be in my imagination). What I really want is to create a new possibility in my life: the possibility of having a sabbatical. From the root of Sabbath, which in Hebrew means to cease doing.

To rest.

We could all probably use a little sabbatical from our lives.

To get away.

To just be.

To read or think or write or create.

Or…to do absolutely nothing.

The question: How can we create that in a powerful and responsible way? In a way that doesn’t involve pretending.

How can I?

That’s the real question.

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Author: Alex Obed

Image: Christopher Windus/Unsplash

Editor: Taia Butler