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Pat Blocksom: A Year in Florence

July 30, 2014

Patricia Blocksom, partner, has just returned from spending a year living in Florence, Italy. She has returned with a spring in her step and with a renewed passion for helping her clients find a way to navigate the vast array of issues they face when their relationships breakdown.

 

So many of her friends, collegues and clients have been curious about why she decided to take a year out of her life in Calgary and how that year has changed her perspective about life.

 

In 2012, after returning from a trip to Ethiopia, which in itself is life changing, Patricia was involved in an international mediation/arbitration. Her client was living in the south of France and after talking about what that experience meant for her client and family, Pat and her client had a conversation that went something like this:

 

Pat: My husband and I have always dreamed of living in Italy for a year.

 

Client: Why don’t you follow your dream and do it?

 

Pat: Because I don’t have enough money yet and I can’t leave my practice for a year.

 

Client: Pat, you will never think you have enough money, and if you finally do think you have enough, you might not have the good health that would allow you to do it. Besides, there will still be people who need lawyers when you get back!

 

Pat: Hmmmm, I never thought about it that way, but you are right.

 

So with the support of her partners and colleagues at work, Pat and her husband packed up their home and moved to Florence, Italy for a year. She studied Italian, took 10,000 photos and traveled extensively around Italy, France and Croatia. See a few of Pat’s photos below.

 

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After thirty plus years of practicing law, she discovered what it was like to focus on life, instead of law. Here is a quote from an email that she sent to one of her partners at DBB:

 

“I worried about leaving for a year at the peak of my career. I worried that I would not be able to restart and that I would be replaced – all those years of living to work, thrown away. Now I only worry about getting sucked in again and working too hard and not living enough.

 

I know what it is to live, truly just be in the moment, not to feel like I have to be busy all the time. I sleep better and longer. While we have been in Italy, two of our dear friends have died. I am more aware of just how fast life flies by than ever before and I want to make sure that I grab what I can now.”

 

This pretty much sums up how her year in Florence changed her perspective.

 

Welcome back Patricia! Keep your focus on life!

 

Find out more by reading her bio here>>

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