Quit the Job, Board the Plane, Resurrect the Freezer Pasta

‘Tis the season for change.

Change of clothes, change of job, change of scenery, change of meds, change of perspective, change of trajectory.

You can feel it in the air—that first warm breeze that doesn’t just whisper, it shoves. Suddenly, you’re catapulted straight into the sweaty belly button of summer. Like it or not, those 90+ degree days will soon be smothering you in their embrace. And once you’ve caught the whiff of change, there’s no going back. (But, don’t worry, it’s a dry heat🥵.)

Spring should really be when we make our New Year’s resolutions. Everything is blooming, new life, all that crap. It’s a cruel, cruel world to have to try to reinvent yourself in the dead of winter when all we want to do is hibernate and eat soup in bed. (Hey, at least it’s not crackers.)

April feels like a threshold. One foot in, one foot out. Or like a cat that screams to have the patio door open, only to sit in the doorway and look outside.

I’m headed to Europe in a few weeks with a group of gals, and I already have the spreadsheet. Multiple tabs. Color-coded. Obviously.

Because here’s the thing about me: I love a plan. I am a gal who has a plan. The lead-up is half the joy — the lists, the sourcing of just the right things, the research, the anticipation. Whether it’s a trip, a dinner party, or a meal, the process is part of it for me.

Just kidding, the food is obviously the best part.

When I get back, things will look different. I’ll have left a job — maybe two — and picked up something new — maybe two. Which sounds very casual and cool girl, and I want to be honest: it is not always casual, and I rarely feel cool. The in-between is uncomfortable. You’re not lost, exactly. You’re just... between plans. And for someone who color codes her travel spreadsheets, that gap has a specific kind of disorientation to it that’s hard to explain.

I recently came across the phrase “portfolio career” — a collection of jobs and revenue streams that together make up your career. I have spiraled about not having one clear path most of my adult life, and putting a name to how I’ve been living has helped me hurl this monkey off my back, put my big girl blazer on, and act like the portfolio career was specifically invented for me. (We all want to look great in a blazer and belong to a group.)

Because the truth is, I crave variety. And also stability. Which feels insane to admit, but here we are🙃.

For a long time, I’ve had this low-grade pressure — mostly from myself — to find my one thing (that damn monkey). The thing I could go all in on, perfectly, rely on. Articulate with gusto the answer to “what do you do for work?” My response: Do you want the long or short list?

But what if there isn’t just one thing? What if the whole point is learning how to move between things?

Adjust. Pivot. Keep building. Repeat.

Not perfectly — but better each time. The portfolio career isn’t chaos. It’s not the absence of a plan. It’s a different kind of plan — a framework. Which is, now that I think about it, exactly how I cook.

Not recipes, exactly. More like frameworks. Something green, something bright, something to tie the room together. No strict plan — and yes, I hear the irony.

This week is giving spring pasta vibes🌷🌱

It’s never the same twice. Which used to low-key bother me. I wanted something I could perfect, repeat, control. A recipe I could follow. But this kind of cooking doesn’t work like that. You taste, you adjust, you fix it when it’s off. You throw in something wild and unnecessary just to see if it works, or because you resurrected it from your freezer and it must be cooked. Sometimes it’s a WIN. Sometimes it’s just edible.

Which, honestly, tracks.

The formula, if you need one: something green (peas, asparagus, herbs, whatever is surviving in your fridge), something salty (pancetta, bacon, cheese, your tears), something bright (lemon, always lemon), something wild (braised radishes, anyone), butter (duh), and pasta water — don’t forget it, like you always do.

It’s not about getting it right. It’s about staying with it long enough to make it work.

So I’m getting on that plane with a color-coded itinerary securely in tow and a lavender hazy idea of what my life looks like when I land. And I’m making peace with that, not because I’ve stopped loving a plan (girl, please), but because I’ve done this enough times to trust that I can build one when I get there.

Taste, adjust, make something good out of whatever you’ve got.

Just like the pasta 🧈🍋

And before anyone calls this pasta primavera — I refuse. Blame Season 4, Episode 16 of Seinfeld. A sneeze was involved, and I’ve never recovered.