Somewhere Between Stay-at-Home Mom and Whatever Comes Next

I took one of those career assessment tests recently.

You know the kind.

Answer a hundred questions about your personality, interests, strengths, weaknesses, whether you'd rather organize a spreadsheet or lead a wilderness expedition—and somehow, through the miracle of modern technology, it will reveal what you should be doing with your life.

My result?

Acting.

Acting.

Be freaking serious.

Who wrote this stupid test?

I am a stay-at-home mom who spends most of her days coordinating school, therapies, appointments, laundry, meals, projects, and whatever fresh nonsense has entered our household that week.

And apparently my true calling has been Hollywood this entire time.

Good to know.

Unfortunately, once I finished questioning the validity of the entire assessment, I had to admit why I'd taken the stupid thing in the first place.

I've been wondering what comes next.

There Is an Expiration Date on This Season

My youngest will hopefully go to school next year.

I've spent years waiting for the day when both of my children would be in school and I would finally have HOURS.

Actual uninterrupted hours.

Can you imagine?

I can.

And apparently it terrifies me a little.

Because lately I've been restless.

I've reorganized the kids' rooms.

I finally finished the laundry room.

I cleaned up the vintage graveyard currently serving as my TV stand.

I've been painting a horse for my daughter and signs for my son's room.

I've designed at least seven shirts for my Etsy shop.

I've planned a birthday party.

I've handled school things and health things and appointments and all the invisible administrative work that comes with raising tiny humans.

And somehow, despite all of that, my brain keeps whispering:

You should be doing something.

Something else.

Something more.

I know I contribute to my family. Logically, I know that.

But knowing something and feeling something are apparently two entirely different departments, and mine do not seem to communicate.

So I keep doing things.

Finishing things.

Making things.

Fixing things.

And waiting for one of them to fill whatever this restless little hole is.

So far?

Nope.

Maybe I'm Not Looking for Another Project

It finally occurred to me that perhaps the problem isn't that I need another project.

God help this house if that's the answer.

Maybe I'm looking for direction.

Because for the first time in years, I can see another version of my life coming over the horizon.

One where both kids get up in the morning and go to school.

One where I am still Mom—but Mom isn't necessarily my entire workday.

And then what?

That's the question I've apparently been trying to answer with paintbrushes, Etsy listings, rearranged furniture, garden projects, and one extremely questionable career assessment.

What do I do next?

Do I Go Back?

Before becoming a stay-at-home mom, I was an athletic trainer.

Technically, I still am.

And that's an important distinction I've only recently realized I've been minimizing.

I didn't let my certification lapse.

I didn't let my license go.

For almost five years, while I've been home raising my children, I've kept up with both.

Apparently some little part of me wasn't willing to completely close that door.

Still, when I think about returning, my immediate thought is:

Who would hire me after being out for almost five years?

Five years is a long time.

Then again...

What exactly have I been doing for those five years?

Because "I stayed home with my kids" is technically accurate.

It's also hilariously inadequate.

I've spent years navigating therapies, specialists, insurance, schools, evaluations, developmental milestones, motor skills, sensory needs and healthcare systems.

I've sat on the other side of the treatment table.

I've been the parent trying to understand what a provider is explaining.

I've watched therapists find completely different ways to reach a child when the textbook approach wasn't working.

I've learned what good communication from a healthcare provider feels like when you're the scared parent instead of the clinician.

None of that means I've been practicing athletic training for the last five years.

I haven't.

But I don't think I've been standing still, either.

Maybe I wouldn't return as the exact same athletic trainer who left.

Maybe that's the point.

The Gap Isn't Empty

For some reason, when women talk about returning to work after staying home with children, we call those years a gap.

And I understand why.

On a résumé, that's exactly what it is.

But personally?

There was absolutely nothing empty about it.

I became a mother in ways I didn't know motherhood would require.

I became an advocate.

A scheduler.

A researcher.

A teacher.

A chauffeur.

A project manager.

A professional form-filler-outer.

A person who can discuss therapy goals in one breath and somehow find a missing shoe while breaking up a sibling argument with the next.

I learned patience.

Then discovered I did not have nearly as much patience as I thought.

Then learned some more.

I learned to communicate differently.

I learned that sometimes progress doesn't look anything like you expected it to.

And I learned what healthcare feels like from the family side.

I don't know yet what I'll do with all of that.

But I refuse to believe those years amount to a blank space.

Maybe I Don't Need a New Identity

That's the other thing I'm realizing.

I keep approaching this like I have to reinvent myself.

Maybe I go back to athletic training.

Maybe I start something completely different.

Maybe I build my shop.

Maybe I write.

Maybe I find some bizarre combination of all of it.

Maybe Hollywood calls.

Please don't.

But I don't actually have to decide today.

My youngest isn't walking into school tomorrow.

I have time.

Maybe this year isn't supposed to be the year I launch into my next career.

Maybe it's the year I start figuring out what I want that career to look like.

Not what twenty-something-year-old me wanted.

Not what looks impressive.

Not what I'm "supposed" to do because I have a degree and credentials.

And definitely not what a career assessment written by someone who apparently sees untapped theatrical talent in a woman wearing leggings and reorganizing her laundry room says I should do.

What does this version of me want?

The woman who became an athletic trainer and then became a mother.

The woman who spent five years caring for everyone else but still quietly renewed her credentials every time they came due.

The woman who paints and writes and gardens and makes things because apparently sitting still is physically impossible.

The woman whose children are getting older whether she likes it or not.

Maybe I'm not starting over.

Maybe I'm standing at the intersection between who I was before this season and who I became because of it.

And maybe that's why I've been so damn restless.

I'm not looking for something else to do.

I'm trying to figure out what I want to build next.

Which is admittedly much less straightforward than reorganizing a room.

But probably more useful than becoming an actress.

Although if Hallmark is looking for a frazzled military wife who renovates a laundry room, raises children, paints things she has no business painting, and solves everyone else's problems before realizing she forgot to eat lunch...

Fine.

I'll consider it.

Apparently I've been training for the role for years.