A solo cruise made her question whether she was on the right career path

• When Laura Gio Carroll felt stuck in a rut, she left her partner at home and embarked on a cruise alone.
• Carroll had little interest in cruises, but a writing retreat aboard the Queen Mary 2 intrigued her.
• Since the cruise, she’s questioned whether her full-time corporate job is a good fit.

Like many people, I messed up in my 30s. My career felt stalled and my life consisted mostly of work and Netflix. I was bored, listless and felt like I needed something big to get me out of my funk.

So when my 40th birthday came around, I did something completely out of character: I booked my first cruise. Solo.

The solo travel part wasn’t out of character – I’d spent most of my 20s backpacking alone. For most of my 30s, I traveled with my husband, but going on a solo adventure was in my comfort zone.

The cruise part was weird.

“I’m not having fun,” my husband told me after I booked my ticket. “That’s not what you’re there for.”

“Of course not,” I assured them. “I certainly won’t have fun without you.”

I didn’t imagine there would be much entertainment on board to interest me. Cruises, I thought, were perpetual drunken pool parties—the kind of parties I was never invited to, nor would I ever have. have fun even if someone threw a sin invite my way.

This particular cruise seemed better than most options – the Queen Mary 2 featured a luxury afternoon tea service, if nothing else.

My husband, who was curious about the cruise, was possibly just a little jealous.

I wasn’t going on a cruise to have fun

I chose this particular experience not for the cruise itself, but because it was part of the Rebirth Your Book Writing Retreat, which happened to take place on a transatlantic crossing. This writing retreat – with its promise of expert instruction plus focus time – enticed me to board a ship.

Being an artist was my childhood ambition. But like most childhood ambitions, it fell by the wayside under family and societal pressure to do something “practical” with my life. But the itch to create was still there. I was hoping a writing retreat would reignite that spark.

I was left unsure about the cruise aspect though. All I was looking for were some workshops followed by uninterrupted writing time. Couldn’t we have done this on land?

As it turned out, the written cruise went swimmingly (despite the fact that I never swam while on board). I connected with another solo writer to split the cost of a cabin and spent a blissful week talking about writing with smart and interesting people. Maybe, I thought, the trick to getting a thinking person on a cruise ship was just to find a bunch of other thinking people to take the cruise with them.

The $3,000 cost of the transatlantic cruise, plus the workshop fee, felt like money well spent. I ate a lot of great food, went swing dancing, watched some talented performers, drank a lot of wine, and generally lived to be 40 years old.

“Okay,” I mentally apologized to my husband, “I might have a little fun.”

Back on land, I began to question my career choices

The real difficulty, as it turned out, came when I got home.

I thought the writing retreat would scratch my creative itch and I would return home to my regular career as a government contractor and continue to write on the weekends. Instead, I had a full blown meltdown.

“What the hell am I doing with my life?” I thought as I looked at another spreadsheet.

“Do I really want a hands-on career?” I asked as I read through a stack of reports.

The idea of ​​a midlife crisis seemed like a cliché. Doesn’t everyone question their life choices when they hit 40?

I still wanted financial stability and to use my International Development degree, but I couldn’t deny that spending a week focused on writing made me want to focus on writing even more.

I’m still figuring out how to make the transition from my current career to a literary one, or if I’ll somehow combine a full-time corporate job with what I hope will become a full-time writing job. But I do know that my 40th birthday present made me refocus on what I really want in life and made me more certain that writing is my future.

In the months after the cruise, I made significant progress on my book project, wrote a few articles, and made a list of literary agents to approach when my book was ready. I’ve also segmented my schedule into specific writing hours that fit around my regular job. I’m working to channel my midlife crisis in a positive, productive way.

Next year, my wife and I will take a cruise together on an itinerary of their choosing, just for fun.

Do you have a personal essay on dealing with a midlife crisis? Contact the publisher: [email protected].