I crawled into bed at 2am. For the fourth night in a row. As I set my alarm for an ungodly hour, the to do list of what awaited me in little over three hours swirled in my head. Not for the first time I wearily thought “I need out”. And then a more lucid thought shot through my sleep deprived brain…”Actually, wait…how could I make that happen?”. When my alarm went off I hadn’t slept a wink but I felt more energised than I had in a long time. I had a PLAN. A wacky, hare-brained, very un-lawyerly escape plan. Now I just needed to convince the hubby.*
I have (had) what could be described as a fairly “extreme job” (and not in an exciting, death defying, lion taming, skydiving type of way) – extreme in the far more dull sense of 80 and at times 100 hours plus a week, unpredictable workflow, relentless demands from clients all over the world and at all hours of the day, to meet ridiculously tight deadlines**…rah rah rah
Being a mergers and acquisitions lawyer in a large law firm has a certain clout to it on paper (though is a sure fire conversation killer when you introduce yourself at most BBQs ) but the reality tends to involve stumbling through each day in a highly stressed, sleep-deprived, over-caffeinated (and often hungover) fog.
And the reward for years of hard work, stress, exhaustion and responsibility? Partnership – which brings with it even more hard work, stress and exhaustion. When I was promoted to partner a few years ago, one of the wise big-wigs said “be careful what you wish for – it’s like winning a pie eating contest and the prize is more pies”. I’m not complaining – for a long time I loved pies, but now I’m getting pretty full. I need a break from pies – I need a total pie de-tox.

The trappings of life in Sydney’s inner west have tied me to a career, a salary and a lifestyle with which I have become increasingly disillusioned. After I finally slept and gave some real thought to my crazy plan, packing it all in wasn’t an easy decision – if I did something different how would I pay the massive mortgage on our (not so massive) inner west terrace house, support my three mini-hipster ratbags with their crazy schedule of inner west activities, not to mention how would I keep myself in the shoe habit to which I have become accustomed?
It struck me (about an hour into my manic escape scheming) – debt makes you do things you don’t want to. If I didn’t have debt does that mean I could do the things I actually want to do? (and do I really need that many shoes?)
So CRAZY PLAN STEP ONE: we sold our house. Boom – no more debt. (As you may know – mortgage is french for – literal translation.. death-pledge. Yep – debt til death…that’s where we were heading. Ah, no thank you). Funnily enough, the ridiculous over priced Sydney property market that is the reason we have such a huge mortgage burdening us and part of why we want to flee city-life for a while, is the very same ridiculous (and even more overpriced now than when we bought in) market that has now given us the financial freedom to take a breather.
CRAZY PLAN STEP TWO: Quit job. Eek!! I am a super nerd, uber ambitious and pretty bloody risk averse. Completely out of character for me. But it went surprisingly well – my firm has been ok about my crazy plan and has even given me a leave of absence for a year. Thanks!
So, while we sort out what to do next (cue thinking music) – CRAZY PLAN STEP THREE: we have bought a camper trailer and a 4WD, are taking the kids out of school and we’re taking a year out to travel around Australia. No schedules, no deadlines, no pressure – time to hit the road!! Let’s see where this crazy plan ends up….
* He was in on the crazy plan …almost instantly. He is pretty bloody awesome like that.
** For the record, Harvard Business Review defines “extreme jobs” as meeting at least 5 of a list of 10 similar demands…many corporate lawyers could tick 8 or 9 of the extreme job criteria on a regular basis. I know – boo hoo for highly paid lawyers right?? We tend to receive little sympathy
*** If you have seen the classic coming of age movie “Stand by me”, you will totally get this. If not you may just think this is really gross…
Yep, your husband is pretty bloody awesome Jackie, and pretty bloody awesome children too. You all are!!
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