One Year Ago Today I Was Crying on a Plane
Today My Book Is in the World
Life can be wonderfully poetic. As I sat down to write this launch-day article, it dawned on me that the fateful moment of crying on the plane home from Paris had happened almost exactly a year ago. Wouldn’t that be something, I thought, if it had been on the very same day my book is released? It seemed unlikely, but I couldn’t resist checking.
I scrolled back through Facebook and found it—my post saying goodbye to Paris. March 3, 2025. One year to the day. March 3, 2026, You Don’t Have to Stay—the book born from that moment on the plane home from Paris—is released. This was not planned. There was no strategy or intentional symmetry behind it. It gave me chills. I had to sit down, overwhelmed by the feeling that this timing was bigger than me.
If you’d like to read the full story of that flight home from Paris, you can find it here.
When I returned home, I didn’t quit my job. Instead, I started writing. I remembered a transatlantic cruise I had taken the year before and the spark of a story that had stayed with me. Rather than continuing to focus on what I hated, I began building something I loved, one hour at a time, after work, often exhausted but determined.
That small decision—to create instead of simply endure—became the thread that slowly changed everything. I didn’t have a plan, and I was still unsure whether I would stay or leave my job. What I had was a growing awareness that the hours I spent writing felt different from the hours I spent at my day job. One drained me. The other energized me.
I knew something had to change. I just couldn’t make myself be the one to change it.
So the decision was made for me.
A few months after that plane ride I was laid off. I didn’t see it coming. My first reaction was shock. And then, almost immediately, I felt something else entirely: relief.
I cried again. But this time the tears were different. I felt years of strain and pressure releasing all at once. I had been pushed out of the nest. And somewhere between the shock and the relief came immense gratitude.
I was free.
The book that came out of that freedom—out of the plane ride, the layoff, the tears, and the slow, uncertain rebuilding that followed—launches today.
You Don’t Have to Stay is available in paperback and ebook on Amazon here.
But this book isn’t just the story of what happened to me. It’s for anyone who has had their own version of that plane moment—the realization that something isn’t right, even if you don’t yet know what to do about it. It’s for the person who feels stuck, who needs permission to want work that fits, and practical guidance on how to move toward it.
You Don’t Have to Stay walks through the emotional unraveling, the financial realities, the fear, the identity shift, and the small, deliberate steps that make change possible. If you’re somewhere between knowing and acting, this book was written with you in mind.
I didn’t know a year ago that this is where I was headed. I just knew I couldn’t stay where I was.
Sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes the only clarity you need is the knowledge that something has to change—and the courage to take one step in the direction of more.
If you are ready to take the next step, you can find You Don’t Have to Stay here.