One day, you wake up to another normal weekend in your rented apartment. A day set aside for mundane tasks - cleaning, doing laundry, tending to your balcony plants, in the middle of Latin America's most populous city. While hanging clothes fresh from the washing machine, you ask yourself: "What am I doing with my life?"

I feel an immense emptiness, nothing has joy or color, a gray life, like the colors of most buildings in the city where I live. When did my life become so insignificant? I don't like anything I do, work doesn't motivate me, nothing here brings me joy, I think.

I look at the clear sky from the balcony and watch people passing by on the sidewalk. To others, it probably seems like I have everything - a good job, a nice place to live, good education, good friends, and still, in my early 30s, no family obligations like children or a husband to "take care of". However, to me, it all seems so pointless.

I've always tried so hard to "make it in life" that I feel depleted in everything I've dedicated myself to. I've worn myself out in every role I've played - daughter, student, worker, colleague, lover, friend, adult. Nothing is left of me, an emptiness that weighs so heavily that even getting out of bed sometimes feels like a huge sacrifice.

I had just returned from a trip with friends during the extended holiday the week before, and yet I was tired, I was empty. The trip was great, we went to the countryside of Goiás, saw old friends, visited waterfalls, rivers, and caves. The caves were something special, internal beauties formed by crystallized waters, pointed formations following gravity.

Even so, the trip didn't distract me from my existential dissatisfaction; on the contrary, it heightened my awareness of the masks I wore in everyday life. Each cave I entered felt like I was exploring a dark corner of myself, waiting for a light to be seen. "This relationship isn't good," "This job doesn't make you happy," "This city has nothing more to offer you," "This situation has run its course." With each dark corner I crossed, a different echo emerged in my heart.

Two days traversing trails and caves, the more I walked, the more I felt I needed to forge a different path in my life. At the end of the trip, I confessed my anxieties to one of my best friends. He, with his guide and counselor vibe, gave me a reiki session and told me something I never thought could be possible for me: "Why don't you take a sabbatical?"

When I heard this, the idea seemed a bit absurd, I thought to myself. How can I take a sabbatical? What about my job? I'm not a rich person, or supported by someone to spend time doing nothing! And what about money to survive?

Survive - my whole life until that moment had been about surviving, I had never stopped to think about it. I wasn't living, I was surviving, opposing resistances and obstacles to remain in situations that sometimes weren't good for me or no longer made sense to me. And living, as Nietzsche said, presupposes "a desire to be," a desire to be despite everything. And at that moment, I didn't even know what I wanted to be. Living is more than surviving. It's being completely, without resistance, yourself.

I returned home with the seed planted, but without thinking much about the possibility of having this time. A weekend later, hanging my clothes on the clothesline, I asked myself: "What can I do to change my life, change how I feel, have a desire to live?"

The answer came: "Why don't you take a sabbatical? Nothing is holding you here, the timing feels right." That moment was as if the city became as colorful as carnival days. My heart was so full of euphoria, as if adrenaline was rushing through my entire body. I was being filled with the desire to be, with the idea of living a sabbatical.

Credits: Author photo - Terra Ronca, Goiás, Brazil