Well. Here We Are.

An introduction to this space, and the woman writing it.

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I’m Jen. I’m 46. I live in Missouri, I have cats, and sometime this September I’m getting on a plane to Amsterdam — alone — which is either the most exciting thing I’ve done in years or a complete disaster waiting to happen. Possibly both. Probably both.

Here’s the thing about Amsterdam specifically: it wasn’t even at the top of the list. I want to go everywhere. My husband used to say that whenever I’d mention a new destination — “you want to go everywhere” — and I’d tell him he was absolutely right. I have a list so long it’s basically just “all of Earth.” Amsterdam was on it, yes, but so is approximately every other place with a passport stamp attached.

Then two friends went separately, within months of each other, and both came back saying the same thing: you have to go. One of them told me she kept thinking of me the whole time she was there. That it was just very Jen, whatever that means. I chose to take it as a compliment and book the flight before I could talk myself out of it.

I want to say I booked it easily, decisively, the way a confident traveler books a flight. Reader, I tried to book that flight probably a dozen times before I actually completed the purchase. Because here’s something I don’t love admitting: I’m terrified of flying. Not always-been-afraid terrified — this is a newer development, something that crept in with age like a bad knee or an intolerance for late nights. It is absolutely maddening when you want to see the whole world and your nervous system has strong opinions about aluminum tubes at 35,000 feet.

The flight is booked. I have anxiety every time I think about it. I’m going anyway.

Part of what pushed me — besides my friends’ very convincing Amsterdam reports — was a book I listened to recently called Die With Zero. The premise is exactly what it sounds like: stop hoarding your money and your experiences for a future version of yourself who may never arrive. Use your life to actually live. I already believed this, somewhere. The book just said it out loud in a way I couldn’t unhear. I would be furious with myself if I got to the end of things and found out I’d been saving up instead of showing up. Money is for retirement, yes — and also for getting yourself over the Atlantic to walk along canals in a city a friend says is just very you.

I’ve never traveled solo except for work. I’m a little nervous about that too, and mostly excited — the particular kind of excited that comes from having time that is entirely your own, with no one else’s preferences to consider, no compromises to make. Just me and whatever Amsterdam turns out to be.

A few days ago my friend Deb sent me a Gilda Radner quote. Deb does things like this — sends you exactly the right words at exactly the right time. The quote was this:

“Some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity…”

I texted her back immediately. I have had a lot of changes in the past year. Big ones, the kind that rearrange the furniture of your life and leave you standing in the middle of the room trying to remember where everything used to be. I don’t know what the next chapter looks like yet. Most days I’ve made peace with that. Some days I haven’t.

But there’s something in Radner’s framing — the word delicious, specifically — that reoriented something in me. Not knowing doesn’t have to be a problem to solve. It can be the whole point.

So that’s what this space is. A place to write about travel and midlife and the strange beauty of not having it figured out. I’ll take you to Amsterdam in September, anxiety and all. I’ll write about this life I’m in the middle of — the work, the places, the cats, the questions I’m still sitting with. I’ll probably write about Die With Zero more than once because I’m still thinking about it.

I’m glad you’re here. Stick around — it’s going to be beautifully ambiguous.

— Jen