Dealing with the harsh winter weather seemed like fun games as I got back to work in January 2010 at the end of my maternity leave. I was feeling the blues of leaving my 3-month old baby girl at home with my mother and dreading what was waiting for me back in the office. Little did I know that I’ll be finding a new tribe and creating a whole new life after the professional challenges I experienced.
I had been working at an advertising agency for almost 4 years when things started to become unhealthy for me. Although I had learned so much during the previous years, a toxic work environment developed and I soon found myself wanting to leave. Pregnant and very vulnerable, my days were very stressful, I struggled with constant migraines and day-dreamed of finding a new tribe or at least going back to the one I had left behind in Santo Domingo.
Luckily for me, a new friend came into my life at the right moment and she guided me through those difficult times, she was my coach as to how to handle the situation and helped me survive the storm without losing the benefits I was entitled to. Although the desire for change and finding a new tribe was burning in me, I had mixed feelings when I finally got laid-off in March of 2010. At that moment, not knowing what was going to happen next, with a brand new baby at home, the uncertainty started creeping up.
At the same time, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders as I walked out of the building where I worked on East 45th Street in New York City. I didn’t know how or when, but as I rode the Metro North back home in the middle of the day, I reassured myself everything was going to be fine. Turns out, this was the best thing that ever happened to me professionally, it was the end of a growing stage and the beginning of a whole new world of possibility.
Finding A New Tribe: Working Mom 2.0
In my hopes of finding a new way, I started my new life as a mom that needed to work but not in the traditional way I had done it in the past. There is definitely a before and after in my career that is divided by the birth of my baby girl. I was just a regular working mom when I birthed her and within 6 months of her existence, I was becoming working mom 2.0, finding a new tribe of Latina moms who worked online and from home while taking care of their children.
When I turned 33 years old in May of 2010, I was a mom of an 8-month old baby and up to that point my blog had been a place to reminisce about my old life in Santo Domingo, to connect with a few old friends living on the other side of the sun, ‘Del Otro Lado del Sol’ like I named the first blog I had. That wasn’t it, and I believe is because I was not ready for reinventing myself, what generated this page wasn’t as powerful as what my next move was going to be.
In December 2010, 9 months after losing my job (and gaining my freedom) I birthed my second child, in digital form, the Spanish language blog La Familia Cool. Once I did that, I figured that there might be other Latina moms online and I started searching for them. That’s how I ended up finding a new tribe, the one that I belonged to all along.
Thirty-three was a year of discovery, of new beginnings, of reinventing. It prepared me for growth and much-needed change.
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