Resetting at 40: How a Gap Year Rewired My Career and Life

After more than two decades in corporate America, the author took an unpaid gap year in her 40s to slow down, redefine priorities, and try new experiences each week. The journey fostered curiosity, stronger friendships, and ultimately a shift to travel writing, while she learned to manage finances and let go of rigid independence. In the ensuing months, life brought her husband’s retirement and her youngest child off to college, with the gap-year mindset helping navigate these transitions with presence and purpose.