Just call me Mrs. Leisure

This month I confirmed something I've always suspected about myself: I could totally be a lady of leisure. I could wear tennis skirts and make lunch dates, muse over fabric swatches, maximize our closet space and plan extravagant vacations to exotic places I'd only read about in magazines. 

In the past few weeks, I've taken some time off work just to relax, breathe and get my bearings. With Dave working all day at his summer internship, I've been free to rattle around our one-bedroom condo, read novels in the park, shop for ties to match his new gray suit, try out a new gazpacho recipe and organize spontaneous dinner parties.

I bought pussy willows from the farmer's market, arranged them in a vase and put them on the shelf in our bathroom. I went to yoga three times a week. I attended meditation services at the neighborhood Buddhist temple. I visited my friend, Amy, three days after she had her baby and held him for three hours while she recounted every detail of her birthing experience. All during weekday afternoons while regular people were working.

Relaxing in our hotel in Vietnam during our honeymoon.

Like most Americans, I've long defined myself by my work, my job title, my "transferable skills." A few years ago, when the journalism industry started to free fall and I lost my job as a magazine editor in the height of the global recession, something inside me shifted. There was no longer a clear career progression: local newspaper to regional magazine to national publication.

I had made it to the regional level but just as I may have started making my move to the national scene, the ladder was kicked out from under me. There was no place safe to climb. Newspapers across the country were undergoing mass layoffs. Magazines from Gourmet and Vibe to Portfolio and Men's Vogue folded. Even Playgirl went out of business. (If you can't count on porn to sell magazines, what can you count on?)

At the time, I was devastated. After 10+ years in the industry and a fancy degree, I could no longer tell people at cocktail parties, "I'm an editor at Crain's Chicago Business" to approving nods and affirmative glances. I was a nobody. My life was over. Or so I thought as I drank copious amounts of red wine and cried into the phone to helpless family members in California.

What I didn't realize was that I had been granted a rare freedom. I've always been someone with outside interests, but now I had plenty of time to step back, reevaluate, think about what I really wanted to do without a deadline looming over my shoulder. It enabled me to go to parties like the salon in Hyde Park where I met my husband, who was drawn to me even though I was no longer a big shot.

When I think about it now, it's scary to me how much time we spend at our jobs each week and how much we're willing to sacrifice to keep them. There has to be a better way to make a living.

These days I'm back at work, commuting to a skyscraper downtown where I swipe my access card to take the elevator to my cubicle on the 34th floor where I write and edit web content from 9 to 5 for a global law firm. It's fine for now. Really. But I've had a taste of freedom. I know what I'm working toward. And I'm sure I'll look damn cute in that tennis skirt.