WORKING MOTHER LOST HER JOB AND THEN 2 OF HER KIDS Left for College – ryan

For Nearly two decades, i functioned as a full-time mother and a full-time magazine editor.

THEN LAST YEAR, I WAS LAID OFF FROM THE JOB The Job I Had Held for Nearly 11 Years, Only a Few Months before My Two Oldren Left for College and My Youngest Middle School. Overnight, My Calendar Cleared and My Phone Stopped Buzzing. No More Daily Deadlines, No More Commutes, No More Mental Checklists of Who Needed to Be Where and Wen.

Father First, I felt relief. I was Burnt out and in need of a break, and the timing cououl not have ben better. It was the end of june, whic meant i is all that all that to be offer while the being available for anythering my Needed as they prepared to leave the nest.

Life Was Busy, But Manageable

While I was working, my two identities ran in tandem – SOMEMESE SEAMlessly, more often in a constant juggling act. I’d SPEND MORNINGS IN EDITORIAL MEETINGS AND MY EVERYTHING SHUTTLING KIDS TO SOCCER GAMES OR DANCE CLASses. I’d squeeze in emails dural scool pickup, edit pays after bedtime;

Like Mary Working Moters, My Life Was Defined by the Overlapping Demands of Deadlines, Doctors’ Appointments, and Parent-Teacher Conferences.

THEN CAME The Pandemic, and the Lines Blurred Eve Further. I wrote cover lines and edited features while supervising remote learning. I LED DEPARTMENTAL Calls while simultaneously prepping lunch and tossing cloths in the Druer. I was indispensable everywhere, Needed always. As work returned to a hybrid model and the kids became slightly more indendent, the chaos eased somewhat, but the balance was Still Elusive.

I’ve lost jobs before, but this felt different

One Friday, nor I began my morning routine, i reciped that dreaded calendar invite to a meeting with my manager and a rep from hr. The Company was restructuring, and my position was being elimination – and in just a few minutes, my life changed drastically.

The Last Time I Lost A Job, i Had a 15-Month-Old at home and two in elementary school. SURE, I HAD NO WORK TO DO, But A Toddler CLIMBING The Walls, Nightly Homework Sesions, and Consistently Responding to “Mommy!” Busy kept. There washn’t much time for self-reflection.

This time was different. For the first time SINCE 2005, no one at Home Needed with Urgently Eother. That Dual Shift-Professional and Personal-Has Left with in a Strange in-Between Space. I’m no longer a full-time working mother. The identity i like like a security skin for decadees feels suddenly ill-fetting, and i’m trying to figure what comes next.

A Surpring Shift Took Place

I didn’t realie how Much of MySelf i have wrapped up in being busy. My Worth offen felt measured in output: a polished article, an edited package, a perfectly executed family logistics plan. Now, The Quiet Stretches of My Days Feel Both luxurious and unsettling.

I Can Sleep in Because of Don’t Have to Wake Kids for School – But it Feels like the day. I don’t have to run home to start dinner, but with the structure, it’s shockingly easy to let hours slip by doing not. I Can Linger over Coffee, Walk the Dog with Rushing, Eve Stream An Episodes – or Five – of “Love is Blind” in the Middle of the Afternion. And yet, i fidget, restless, wondering what Exactly i’m suppartment to be doing.

For the Years I Imagined How Easy Life Wouuld be If I COUP SPEND IN A QUIET HOME, No Longer Glued to My Phone to Catch Every Urgent Email, No Last-Minute Target Runs, No Fantic Calls from the Nurssees of Come Pick Up A Stre-Laden Child. But no one tells you that that the “Easier” Stage with its Own ACHE: The Loss of Being Needed by anyone or Everyone in the Same Way.

I’m learning to reframe this moment. Maybe it isn’t about who i am or who was, but who I can Still Become. I have the professional skills hon over the decades – storytelling, editing, managing teams – that I can bring to new Kinds of work. I have the personal experience of raisiting kids while keping a caareer alive, which gives with perspective and resilience i didn’t fully appreciate before. And i finally have time – time to think, to reset, to imagine what the next version of the could look like.

Maybe identity isn’t fixed; Its Rewritten. Right now, mine is a draft. That’s Uncomfortable for Someone Used to Tidy Headlines and Firm Deadlines. But Maybe this is where the story gets interesting: not in the perfect balance, but in the messy middle, where reinvention begins.