What are my plans for my gap year? This was a question I asked myself about a year ago.  It was very clear for me that I wanted to gain some work experience after twelve years of school. I found a job in the back office, where I was part of a team who is responsible for a lot of paper work. My contract was set for twelve months. Something I hadn’t planned but in the beginning I didn’t think much about it.

Two weeks in, it was already clear for me that I was not made for a 8 to 5 job where I had to fulfill the same tasks over and over again, like a robot. Nevertheless I still was convinced that this was part of the “work experience”.

Every day I woke up with the thought – first some boring office work and after that I can enjoy myself whilst doing sports as well as going out with friends. My thinking led to the fact that I said yes to everything, literally everything. Dance workshops, organizing shows, going to the gym, going to parties etc. Then in November my body got sick. First it was the flu, a normal flu. However my body couldn’t really recover anymore.  For the next three months about every two weeks I had flu symptoms.

Since I love (really love) to be active and take part in as many fun things as possible my mind also began to strike. I couldn’t cope with the fact that I was doing an unfulfilling job and then come home and only be able to sleep (on some nights I went to bed at eight because I was so tired). I felt useless and somehow like a failure.  Furthermore I got afraid, afraid of doing too much and be sick again. So I began to plan everything and started to panic when I thought I hadn’t enough time to relax because something spontaneous came up.

The only thing I wanted to do in this gap year to enjoy myself and gain experience.

On one weekend I had such a bad panic attack, I wanted to quit every sport I did at the moment to get fit again. This was the moment my mama (<3) intervened and asked me what I really wanted to do.  And on that very weekend I decided to quit my job in the back office in order to do things I loved and have energy for them again.

From then on it went very fast. I contacted a few people and was able to find new ways of gaining work experience. I am now a dance teacher, swim teacher, organizer of different projects where I accompany kids and show them the beauty of movement and most importantly I am trying to live my life to the fullest.

I’ve never been so excited for being a young woman in this world ☺

Follow my journey

(I want to mention that my co-workers were very nice though :p)

(and every party was really worth it 😉 )