Halfway through pregnancy, I suddenly hated my profession.
At first, I blamed the hormonal changes that come with pregnancy, postpartum, and the return of my menstrual cycle.
I rode it out, waiting for the waves of hormones to settle and the last layer to shed, hopefully revealing my final form.
How can I feel lacking in direction or purpose when I have so much?
- I birthed a healthy baby (now one-year-old) boy
- I’ve never felt love this pure and unconditional before
- I’m more driven than ever to be the best version of myself
- My partner is an incredible father and a supportive dream husband
- I’m lucky I can stay home to raise my son in these early years (although with a very frugal lifestyle)
Yes, all of the above is inarguably fantastic.
But on an individual level, I’m not sure who I am anymore besides mamá. It feels like I can’t complain because others have it worse.
But I’ll vent anyway.
I feel like a 387 month old fully-grown toddler with a monthly identity crisis 🤣
Everything I want is riddled with ifs, ands, or buts. I'm annoyed with myself because maybe I am overcomplicating shit (as usual for a type A). I hate that my first thoughts, sometimes, when I see people winning with their careers, are jealous ones. In the end, I truly am happy to see my peers doing cool stuff.
I’ll never be exactly who I was before. I signed up for this! I believe it’s a waste to chase the version of me from an era with different goals, freedoms, and wisdom.
Part of me is pissed off. The other part, although scared, excitedly welcomes whatever rises from the ashes of my inner fire. It's just this in-between era is so damn awkward!
I think I needed to break, pick up the shattered pieces, and question where these things go. Like a Spring cleaning but of the soul. Wow, I sound really fucking smart and philosophical, almost as if I have my shit together, as I type it but I assure you I don't have things figured out by the time you reach the end of this rant.
I can see now that there’s no such thing as this final form.
We’re always learning, changing, and evolving, and so who we once thought we would be may shift entirely. The thing is, we’re conditioned to crave the easy-to-digest story arc—the before-and-after, the clear destination. But the truth is, it’s all fluid. Ever-changing. One version of myself isn’t better than another. They’re all just part of the current.
“Our flow of life is abstract, like water in a river taking on different shapes and speeds as it flows from one place to another, with neither shape nor direction being better than the last because it’s all simply part of the flow of life.”
Things have gotten to a point where a whisper has become a shout. Every cell of my body tells me I want to be something else, do something else, but I’m not sure what something else is.
One of my first and hardest realizations was when I realized I needed to leave my job at VEED after coming back from holiday break.
I loved my job, the people, the product, and I still love the company. Not to be negative but I'm not sure I'll ever feel that way about a company again, although I do hope so! VEED set the bar high for me.
But like many things in life, it becomes time to move on when things flow in different directions and you just don’t quite fit together anymore. Nothing bad happened. It's just like I said before, I grew tired of my profession and felt the pull of motherhood.
Prior to leaving my job, my mom was my nanny. My son would scream when I'd leave him. After about a month, he didn't want to be with me unless I was nursing him. I think he felt like I was abandoning him, even though he was with his grandma who loves him soooo much. My husband also works and yet he would rather be with him which was both sweet and painful for me.
That was a major driver for me to quit.
When I left my job, I didn't think I would be staying home indefinitely. I just wanted at least 4 or 6 more months at home with my boy and then return to work at 1 year old. After a few weeks, I noticed my son no longer pushed away and instead leaned in to seek comfort in my arms.
I regained his trust and I lost the desire to try to go back to my marketing career as I knew it. But I was still kind of in denial about this desire to drop my career and do something different.
I kept asking myself, why don’t I want to find another company like VEED if it was the best experience of my career?
In my final stages of denial, I applied to two jobs:
- I applied to a content role at a leading AI company, which seemed perfect for me, but I felt zero excitement for it.
- I pitched myself to the founder of another UK-based startup whose product I actually do love (and maybe would've been a cool place to be like VEED) but turns out they're not hiring outside of the country yet.
But even with that UK startup I pitched myself to I felt this weird desire that it wouldn't work out for me. What the fuck? 🤣
It’s clear to me now.
I’m no longer fulfilled working as a content marketer. I love my craft, but it’s how and for who I apply the knowledge that doesn’t work anymore. At least not right now.
Rather than make content the product I offer, I want to use it as the vehicle to build something of my own—whatever that turns out to be.
I have no idea what's next. I might change my mind and get bored again at some point, but I want to keep being okay with the ebb and flow of life because I'm not really good at that. ChatGPT roasted me and it was spot on for a lot of things.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from watching my son, it’s the importance of play and curiosity without the pressure of knowing where everything leads precisely. Sometimes, we know exactly what we want to do, and sometimes, we just need to unload the pressure of knowing so we can experience life and let the wisdom unfold in its own way.
It’s scary. You may fall, scrape a knee, launch a crap idea, or even launch a solid business you realize you don't like (yup, that one happened to me before haha).
But eventually you figure it out.
Discomfort is a compass. And right now, it’s pointing me toward something that’s mine—even if I don’t fully know what it is yet.
P.S. From now on my marketing blog will be more of a public journal for me to document my journey of figuring things out and a home for any other thoughts I feel like sharing.
