When Losing My Job Gave Me My Life Back
Finding Joy in Presence: How Losing My Job Taught Me to Prioritize What Really Matters
Learning to Slow Down and Enjoy the Life I Worked So Hard to Build
Like many in my generation, I have worked full-time since I was 18 years old. Before I was 18, I babysat and had various part-time jobs. I don't know if my family is what caused me to want to work so young, but I do know that I enjoyed the freedom of having my own money—money to buy things that my family simply couldn't afford.
Because of that, I have worked hard my entire teenage and adult life. Sometimes, I feel like I worked so much that I missed out on some of the things other people experienced, like having fun or going to college.
I met the love of my life when I was 22, in 2010. We got married when I was 25, in 2012. His job took us to different places, and over the years, we lived in Washington, Ohio, and Oregon. We have had great adventures together, the biggest being having our beautiful daughter in 2023.
I continued working full-time until my daughter was two years old. That is when my employer announced a huge reduction in force that resulted in approximately 300 layoffs, including me.
For the first time since I was a teenager, I wasn't working full-time. I didn't even have a job.
At first, being laid off and unemployed felt strange. Suddenly, I had all this time to simply focus on our daughter.
But I realized just how deeply I had built my life around work and schedules.
When I was working, everything revolved around a strict routine. Her naps were carefully planned around my breaks and meetings. Bedtime needed to be 8:30 or 9:00 because I had work the next morning. Everything had a schedule because I needed it to. It was how I managed everything.
Suddenly, those things didn't have to happen anymore.
And honestly, it was hard for me to let go.
I was so used to being on a strict schedule for the sake of my own sanity that I didn't know how to slow down and simply enjoy our days together. I had to learn that it was okay if nap time wasn't perfectly planned. It was okay if we stayed up a little later. It was okay to have a day that didn't revolve around a schedule.
Eight months into this new chapter, I can finally and truly say that I am the happiest I have ever been in my life.
I don't feel the same stress and pressure to make sure every nap is meticulously planned or that we are in bed at a certain time. Instead, we plan our days around enjoying our time together.
Being a stay-at-home mom, while still occasionally teaching online pharmacy classes, has become the greatest joy of my life.
I can focus on making sure my family and I are happy. Suddenly, laundry and cleaning the house don't have to be things I rush through between work responsibilities. I can take my time folding the laundry. I can take my time mopping the floors. I can clean the food off the floor after my toddler has finished eating without feeling like I'm racing against the clock.
I can take my daughter swimming. We can go to the park. We can make a Costco run together. I can take her to gymnastics.
These may seem like small, ordinary things, but to me, they are incredibly meaningful.
For the first time in my adult life, I am not constantly trying to fit my family into the spaces left over after work.
I get to make my family the priority.
I think one reason my husband and I had our daughter later in life is because we both have such a strong work ethic. We spent years building our careers and accomplishing a lot professionally.
I also have two younger brothers, with significant age gaps between us—eight years and seventeen years. I played a large role in helping raise them, and in many ways, I felt like a mother from a young age.
Once I started working full-time as a teenager, I poured so much of my energy into working that it simply became who I was.
Until now.
Sometimes I wish we had our daughter years ago instead of spending so much time focused on our careers. But I also have to believe that everything happens in God's timing.
Maybe I needed all those years of working, growing, moving, building careers, and becoming the person I am today before I could fully appreciate this season of my life.
Right now, I am happy.
I am free.
And I am learning what it feels like to simply be a mother—to be present, to slow down, and to focus on the little girl who means more to me than anything.
I am especially grateful for my other half, Jason. He is the main reason I am able to do this right now. He works incredibly hard for our family, and I am so grateful for everything he does. He has truly given me the greatest gift I could have ever asked for: the opportunity to be home with our wonderful daughter.
I am finally learning what it means to be content.
To be happy with where we are right now.
I still look forward to the future. I still have goals and dreams. But I am learning that I don't have to constantly be working toward the next thing to be happy.
Maybe I can just enjoy where I am.
Maybe I can let this season of life be enough.
I'm not even sure why I felt inspired to write all of this. Maybe I just want to document this part of my journey—the part where I finally stopped rushing long enough to realize how much I already have.
For most of my life, I measured success by how hard I worked.
Now, I'm learning that sometimes success looks like slowing down, being present, and enjoying the life you worked so hard to build.
