In My Mom Era

I was 18, with my whole life in front of me and zero ideas about what I wanted to do after high school. I graduated and decided to pursue college part-time. Well, that didn’t work out. I HATE school – presently still do, because now my kids are going through it… which means I’m reliving it 😅🫠.

So I did the community college thing for about 6 months, and after that semester, I stopped pursuing shit I didn’t want. A friend of mine told me her mom was “working in an office,” and asked if I’d like her to recommend me for said office; and I happily agreed.

I mean, it’s an OFFICE; I’d work there for a year while I figured myself out. Turns out, it wasn’t “just an office”; it was A. G. Edwards, Inc. A big financial services firm that was started in 1887 and continued to grow throughout the years.

I started out as basically a glorified clerk, filing paperwork and doing whatever needed to be done. Within a couple of months, my manager realized I was spending half my day with nothing left to do, so she gave me more responsibility. Then more. Then more.

Somewhere along the way, that temporary office job became a career.
A.G. Edwards was eventually acquired, and then that company was acquired again. Somehow, through all of it, I kept landing on my feet.

When my position was finally disappearing in 2008, I applied within the new firm and landed another job about a week before I would have been out of one.

And then I discovered something slightly inconvenient:

I was REALLY fucking good at this.

I made sure I knew what my job was and I did it WELL. I started getting accolades for a job well done, for pitching in and essentially helping other people with their work when they were behind, and learning everything I could about the business. I took a securities exam, when I had the flu, and passed! My boss was happy, I was happy!

Life was good.

The years kept flying by. Next thing I knew, I was getting married. It was 2014, and I was still at the same firm. I had weeks of vacation each year, and I USED them. We were allowed to roll over a week each year, so I usually did that and Tyler and I would take a week or two vacation each year.

Then, March of 2016 rolled around, and I was feeling these weird things, and smelling ALL the smells, and things weren’t tasting right, haha! Yep, PREGNANT with baby # 1. That was a BIG year for me, we went on an amazing vacation to Virginia, I received a “10 years of service” cube from work, and we had our baby boy in October.

Life went sideways quickly. Newborn sleep was horrid, and the middle of the nights were so tough, but on the bright side, I had this amazing little guy that I was head over heels for. The downside? Work doesn’t give you maternity leave for NEARLY long enough here in the States.

I had to find a relatively affordable daycare, leave him there EVERY DAY, and go back to work. In short, I HATED it. It fucking sucked. I felt like I was missing out on all of the big, important moments of his life – rolling over, crawling, coddling, walking, etc. I mean, yeah, I got to see that when we were home, but I desperately wanted to be home with him all the time.

I wanted the elusive stay-at-home mom life. But it wasn’t in the cards. Tyler and I used to describe my job as “golden handcuffs,” because it paid OK, but the vacation and PTO and then maternity leave were wonderful. I couldn’t just up and walk away from a 10-year CAREER at this point without serious consequences.

So I stayed, and slowly began to resent it. Less than 6 months after Declan was born, I was pregnant again. That pregnancy was harder on me physically and mentally. I hadn’t remotely fully recovered from the first go around. But we were still so thrilled.

Tristan came in January of 2018. I got 16 weeks of maternity leave, which is really decent by U.S. standards. But it’s still not enough – and I will fight that point for EVERY mom on the planet – we should be home with our littles for the first year MINIMUM. FULLY PAID.

Sorry, moving on LOL.

Something happened when I had Tristan, though. He had to go to the NICU at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital. He was there for about a month – and no one could really give us a definitive reason WHY he was there.

My mental health started spiraling. I almost couldn’t stand holding him – looking back, it breaks my heart. Thank God Tyler recognized that something was off and he had me go straight to my primary care physician. I’ve been on antidepressants due to postpartum depression since then.

And I make it a point to not hide that. My life is far from perfect, and Tristan and I have a beautiful relationship ❤️, but there’s still a question that sneaks into the back of my mind sometimes… am I good enough for them?

Going back to work after Tristan’s birth was awful. I resented that place more than ever. I would pray to be fired every day. But I wouldn’t deliberately jeopardize my work either – so I didn’t get fired. I was promoted. I trained people; I was the head trainer in my department. I was the department’s overall organizer for new recruits to come and sit with multiple teams, and watch/get a feel for what our jobs were like. I was still SO DAMN GOOD at my job.

I had respect, I had friends, I had a whole career – and I HATED IT SO MUCH.

There was nothing I could do but keep trucking along. So I did. I got a new job and another raise – started training… and 3 DAYS after I began training, COVID broke the world. My whole department was sent to work from home.

Home, where my 3.5-year-old and newly 2-year-old were also relegated to staying home because their daycare shut down.

Those first few months working from home were brutal. I didn’t know what I was doing in my new department, my boss was a complete JACKASS, and I very nearly quit based on principle.

Let me explain – as I don’t think it’s fair without telling the whole story. I made a valid mistake. I acknowledged the mistake and immediately let my manager know about the mistake. The next day, he called me and had my team lead listening while he berated me and asked me what I was possibly thinking. How could I have made SUCH A HUGE error!? He reamed me for 10 minutes without stopping – I wasn’t worth it, he shouldn’t have hired me, I didn’t work hard enough. Oh, and the best part??

While I was blubbering and apologizing over and over again, my boys needed me. Well, my boss’s response to that?

“Can’t you just put them in a room somewhere, close the door, and ignore them while you work?”

…

I tried to work the rest of the day. My team lead tried to cover for the boss. I was a fucking mess. I’ve never hated someone as much as I did in that moment. I still can’t stand the thought of that man.

I took the next day off and decided I wouldn’t let him ever speak to me like that again. And I busted my ASS to get more knowledgeable about my job.

Six months later, he retired and my new manager sent me an email after working with me for about 2 months, and told me she had no idea why my former manager thought I wasn’t a valuable employee – as I was one of her best.

That perked me up some, but to say I was just done is an understatement. I was burnt out mentally, emotionally and physically. Being in lock-down didn’t help the situation. Plus there were organized demonstrations/riots going on and things got too close to the house with our boys for our comfort.

So down to Farmington we went – since I was still working from home. We wanted the smaller community feel and the lower crime rate.

I kept working from home. The golden handcuffs were still there, but manageable. The boys started kindergarten at a fantastic local Catholic School, where they are still thriving. Fast forward a few years, and I’m PREGNANT AGAIN! To say we were surprised is the understatement of my life LOL. But we finally got our girl, Nora, in July of 2023.

Another maternity leave and more HATE for my job. I was just so over it all. Plus, discussions about everyone returning to the office began, and I was vehemently against that. I was doing my job just fine, thank you, and working from the office would ruin that for me.

I may have still had those golden cuffs on, but I was HOME with my baby girl every day – and I got to help my boys with their work and do all the MOM things I was dying to do since 2016. It was tough, but I was LOVING that aspect!

Next came the TWINS (Adaline & Colton) in August of 2024 – someday, I’ll have to write about THAT discovery LOL, it was a doozy! Another maternity leave puts us to December of 2024.

By March of 2025, I was informed that my working from home was done. I had to return to the office, or willingly quit my job. I fought it – I went to my doctor and back and forth with the HR team to get medically cleared due to my mental health level to stay home.

It worked – for about 5 months. By the twins’ first birthday, work made it known, in no uncertain terms, that I was going back to the office. They allowed me to stay home through the end of the year so they could gradually reintroduce me to physically going to work.

The plan was one day a week in January, two days a week in February, and three by March, which matched what everyone else was doing.

I had no choice. Golden cuffs indeed. I made too much money, and the benefits were worth too much for me to quit. I did attempt to fight it again – though this time, my only option was to actually take a mental health medical leave. I started that process at the beginning of March this year.

By March 31st, I was “let go” by my employer of damn near 20 years. I won’t soon forget the day I got that phone call… my boss called and I assumed she wanted to chat about what was happening with my medical leave, but no, it was to tell me I was being let go, with a full severance package for my years of service.

I was sitting on my back porch when I got that phone call. It was a nice, sunny day and the littles were running around the backyard like crazy mini people. I put her on speakerphone because I was hot and didn’t want the phone sticking to my sweaty face. I greeted her like a friend: “Heyy, how’s it going?” It was about 10 or 10:30 in the morning on a Tuesday.

When she told me, I was like, “Wait…. SERIOUSLY?” I was in absolute shock. I had wanted that exact thing to happen for YEARS, and it did. I didn’t know how to react. I thanked my boss for being a great boss and said we’d keep in touch. She told me to take care.

20 years, gone in a 7-minute phone call.

Once the initial shock wore off, I was SO DAMN HAPPY! I called Tyler and let him know what happened, then I called my mom, and then I just basked in the sun while the littles went crazy.

I WAS FREE.

The golden handcuffs were gone.

I hadn’t felt that good in years. Then I was subsequently terrified. OMG, I’m not even 40 yet – HOW THE HELL am I supposed to do this?

Shit, Tyler needs to go back to work – I can do the stay-at-home stuff now! Can we afford me to not work? I seriously need to sit down and look through our finances. What if I have to go back to work? What if Tyler can’t find a job?

The thoughts just kept multiplying and getting increasingly worrisome. Especially when my pay got screwed up because of the medical leave I hadn’t been approved for. So I didn’t get paid for 2 months. Our credit went to complete shit. We almost lost our car. We could hardly put food on the table. Gas was almost impossible.

Enter DoorDash and Uber. Tyler and I both signed up and busted our asses to try to make ends meet. And you know what, our kids had food, our kids were happy, and for the most part, they had no idea what was going on. To say Tyler and I were stressed isn’t even close. We were fighting all the time about completely stupid shit.

Around July, I finally sat down and showed Tyler our finances. I said, “The math isn’t mathing.” He said, “I need to go back to work.” And he did. Within 2-3 weeks, he got a job as an OTR trucker. That alone has been an absolutely HUGE adjustment. Everyone went from “daddy is home 24/7 and is Mr. Mom,” to “where did daddy go?” The littles don’t get it. The boys don’t like it.

But we’re clawing our way out of the hell hole we were in. Yes, bills are still late – but we are paying them.

About 2 weeks ago, I decided to revisit my old blog, and see if I could get that up and running again. Turns out, someone had bought my domain – and I can’t access it. So I started a new one.

In My Mom Era.

This isn’t just me deciding to blog again, or realizing that this is my dream job. This is me, at almost 40, deciding what I want to do with my newfound freedom. I enjoy the hell out of writing. I get a kick out of meeting new people and working with people involved in all manner of the PR/tourist industry.

In less than a week, I’ve revived a good chunk of my old PR contacts, and I’ve started pitching ideas to different places about possible article angles, photography suggestions, and family travel. I’ve already received a pretty decent response. A few review books are coming my way; I have a press junket to attend in a few weeks; and I’ve got a few interviews lined up.

I open my emails with excitement to see what new possibilities are out there for me to research and dream about!

And I’m thriving.

We’ll see how the blog does, and of course, the end goal is to monetize it, but the MAIN goal is to learn things about myself and the world I’m in. And share it with my kids. To do anything less would be a waste.

I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

But for the first time in damn near 20 years, I get to find out.

Kelly