Feeling a little lost...

[tammylsmith]

I've always been a gal who really knows her own heart and isn't afraid of reaching for her goals. I did fundraising and spoke with clubs and organizations in my town to raise money for an international exchange program during my senior year of high school. I worked my way through college and graduated with honors. I jumped right into a good career in graphic design that wasn't quite the right fit... then went on to grad school and was the top candidate with several job offers in elementary education to choose from and I settled on a great job that paid well and was 5 minutes from my house.

Then I had my dd, before I reached tenure (big mistake...well, not dd of course, but not waiting for tenure). My career had been going so well up to that point, I thought I'd jump right back in without a problem and continue on. After all, when I returned to work after maternity leave, I had 1 year to go, and then 1 day and I would have tenure! Well, things fell apart that year. I had a hard time returning to work and missed dd terribly. I had one of *THOSE* classes of students.... one of those that teachers warn one another about from kindergarten all the way up so you know they are coming. I had 5 kids in the class out of 19 who didn't drive me absolutely batty.

On top of that, my dad was dying of brain cancer (he passed that april) and my step mother was making my life a living hell at the time, not making it easy for me to talk to him or see him, because she wanted me to leave my job to come down and take care of him (and I had a new baby, remember?) *sigh* and my principal, who was notorious in my district but who I had a good working relationship with up to that year, turned on me. Didn't support me, and ultimately didn't hire me back (so, with 1 day left until tenure, I lost my job with this district)

My self confidence was shattered. I was able to stay home with dd, which was wonderful, and took a part time job that I really enjoyed with a nonprofit that did work in the arts. I had a beautiful baby boy, and enjoyed my job, but it didn't pay enough for me to hire a sitter, so it went by the wayside after he came. At least it padded my resume and gave me good references to use.

Now ds is 1 year old, and I am financially and mentally feeling the urge to resume my career. I want to make money again, and I want to do adult things again. I want to wear nice clothes again. I feel very, VERY gun shy about teaching, do to the horrendous class of students and the principal. It's also a bad time to get a teaching job, so none of this is working well with my confidence. I enjoyed the nonprofit, and would like to continue something like that full-time, but I'm just not sure what to do. It's a whole new career track, and could involve a job with a commute. My confidence is shaky, I don't feel like I know what career path I even want to follow any more. I just feel... lost :( This is sooo long. Thanks for listening!

Edited by tammylsmith - 4/28/11 at 7:56pm

[LittleGriff]

If I thought about this a little longer I would give you some specific resources I'm aware of to help moms get back into the workforce but I just wanted to jump on right away and give you a big hug. Sounds like an incredibly stressful and draining time for you. Heck, I feel lost and I kept on working through kids. So I'm with you there. Not to mention all the physical/hormonal changes pummeling your body plus a death of a loved one! Sheesh. Good job, mama! That's a hard road.

My general comment (and I'll try to come back with those resources, when I'm not at work, ha) is that as much as possible I would try to take pride in what you've accomplished in the midst of great personal challenges; think of your situation in terms of a human, rather than motherly, dilemma (life happens to men and women, whether you made the right decision about tenure/maternity leave timing shouldn't be your ultimate professional demise); and remind yourself repeatedly that a period of set backs does not define you, you still are that person who excelled in school and work. Really, you are! The American dream has a lot of holes but I do think this country has a higher level of tolerance for "failure" (i.e. setbacks) and great examples of second-chances. This may sound cheesy but I love reading Inc. magazine and all the entrepreneurial failure/struggle stories to put my troubles in perspective. You've come away with a great humanizing experience. You're probably far wiser and kinder than you were when the world was going all your way. That's an important characteristic too.

Leaving my pseudo-self-help spiel and putting on my practical hat for a moment, I wonder if you might be better off trying to get back into teaching despite the bad experience. You've got the training and the experience and it sounds like you were good at that job. When my confidence is shaky, trying something completely new can feel really overwhelming. I know nothing about the teaching world but presumably if you had several offers when you started, it's not a far reach to find something similar elsewhere, or even perhaps to make it back into your district despite the principal?

I'm sure that that was the least bit helpful! I guess I just wanted to say that I've been there, more than once, and somehow ... things got better.

[tammylsmith]

Thanks for listening and for offering such heartfelt advice. It feels good to just get it off my chest. I didn't even write all the struggles I'm facing, because I was worried that nobody would want to wade through my depressing post, lol. My husband is a game artist, and had a great job with a big developer out in Seattle. They were doing really well and loving his work, and times were great, even though I had lost my full time job, I felt like we'd be just fine. Then they up and laid him off when I was 6 months pregnant, and he decided to launch his own game development company. We lived off of savings, retirement $$ and unemployment while I tried to paint on a positive face and help out with some of the projects for his company, hoping that our big break would come and things would take off. Well, they never did. We're about 4 weeks away from totally running out of money, and I'm still months away from when teaching jobs come on the market. Lol, I'm so traumatized by my last experience, I don't know if I can even send my own kid to public school, let alone step foot back in there myself! I just have a lot of baggage to clear out of my own head, which is definitely weighing me down. I've been trying to apply for other work in the nonprofit or design industries, but nobody seems interested anymore. I feel like a completely undesirable job candidate at the moment. So I guess I'm just feeling very trapped and unsure of what direction to go in, and at the same time panicking about money. Dh and I were certainly not expecting to end up in such a dire financial situation back when we were both doing well professionally. :( Now it seems like we just can't catch a break. We have a mortgage and a family and I just feel the weight of the world pressing down on me these days I guess

[tammylsmith]

edited because now I'm just rambling...

Edited by tammylsmith - 4/29/11 at 11:30am

[LittleGriff]

(Cleared original post, decided content was too personal, sorry!!)

Edited by LittleGriff - 4/29/11 at 11:08am

[tammylsmith]

What a small world mama. It is soo nice to comiserate with someone who really knows what I'm saying and has been in my shoes. We could probably do better on the west coast (I know dh would do better, because he is an animator as well as game artist, and it seems like that stuff is all out west!) Unfortunately, both of our families are on the east coast here, and we own a house that is now upside down financially (yay bubbles)Now, we could probably rent it if need be, but we would be losing out on a big goal of remaining near our families so that our kids (and we) could enjoy the benefits of close family ties. My strategy at the moment is to throw everything I've got at the wall to see what sticks. I'm sending out resumes (admittedly, just in the tri state area at the moment) and dh has been on several big meetings lately... just that when the subject of actually PAYING him comes up, potential clients are suddenly taking 2, 3 4 months etc to make a decision about what they want. Lol about the marriage thing. You are right that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Dh and I are under major stress, but we manage to not completely melt down at the same time, so we take turns picking each other up to shake the dust off. The hard thing is that I'm not sure if things are entirely in our hands right now. We are doing everything in our power and working our tails off to make things happen. Now lady luck needs to smile our way, I guess

I understand about the personal stuff. Thanks for thinking of me though. I probably shouldn't be waving my dirty laundry all over the place either but hey, it is making me feel better so thanks for listening!