Welcome To My Brain
I thought about having a niche for my personal blog. Instead, I just feel like writing shit that comes out of that grey matter in my head. It depends on what’s caught my fancy at the moment, but nominally, I am calling No Return Ticket a personal blog about “Cooking & Confessions from a Midlife Crisis.”
I was a career engineer and engineering manager in the technology industry. I went into engineering for lots of great reasons. It was a practical and logical way to escape a troubled childhood. It was a means to move forward, land a good job, and get a good paycheck. It did all those things and I was actually pretty good at it.
That whole career ladder thing worked until 2013.
Midlife Crisis
Then, I left my tech cubicle (or bland grey office as the case was) to pursue a multi-faceted (read: confused and torturous) life hustling and doing side-gigs as a writer, blogger, personal chef, culinary instructor, event planner, and try-anythinger. Basically, anything that meant I don’t go to an office.
The whole thing hasn’t been smashing success and a happily-ever-after. The last six years have been complicated, messy and generally, hard.
Shortly after quitting my job and going to culinary school, my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Her two and a half year battle with this ugly disease upended my career-change and left me grief-stricken. And, I nearly destroyed my marriage.
Then, I bought a motorcycle, took some riding classes, and started writing about the strange trip I was on – including finding my way back to my husband.
Success
It’s been six years since I started this life experiment. I am slowly figuring things out and finding my way and things are looking promising.
Midlife crises are nothing like Eat, Pray, Love. They are messy, ugly, meandering, joyful, painful, full of smiles, tears, and everything in-between. They don’t always work like a movie or the plan you envision when you walk out of your cubicle and into the unknown. In short, I don’t know what the hell I am doing. Once I made a bold choice to leave my safe corporate job, I just started doing it. So, this blog is that messy and nebulous ‘IT’.