How It Started
In December 2019 my sisters and I started a blog. Our heart was to share stories of sisterhood, womanhood, motherhood, real life stories that women could relate to and possibly recognize their own journey in ours. Stories to help us feel connected. Our own sisterhood had been a lifeline for us, and we wanted to share this lifeline of connection with other women.
During those pre pandemic days in late 2019 the lives of my two sisters and I looked somewhat similar. We were all three work at home moms with big families, lots of mouths to feed, and lots of places to shuffle kids to and from. I don’t think I realized at the time how much security I got from that. We could talk and text a hundred times a day. We were our own little support group.
However, during this same time my youngest sister, Jess, started to think about going back to her teaching career. She’d been a work at home mom for 13 years, and she was ready for a change. Things quickly fell into place (aka she worked her butt off and made things happen), and by the spring of 2020 she had secured a full time teaching job for the fall of 2020. But of course now we were also in the middle of a full fledged pandemic…
My sisters and I were still writing our blog, doing our sister thing.
What Happened Next
Enter the fall of 2020. My sister, Jess, started her full time teaching job and my sister, Becky, accepted a full time substitute teaching position at a highly impacted elementary school to help with the effects of the pandemic. Both of my sisters were loving their work and finding a sense of fulfillment. Although all three of us still had our home based businesses, for the first time in years, our daily lives looked very different from one another. Honestly I felt lost. I felt envious. I wondered if I SHOULD be doing something different, if I SHOULD be working outside my house. They were both teaching, SHOULD I be teaching? I wondered if I was doing ENOUGH with my life. Part of this was a result of my sisters doing something different, part of it was a result of the redundancy of my days during the pandemic. But all of sudden they had these big lives outside of what we had been doing for years, and I was envious and discontent, a little bored, and feeling antsy.
We stopped contributing to the blog. They were super busy, I was feeling uninspired and also I wasn’t used to doing things without them. I didn’t realize how much of a crutch they were to me.
I was still writing, though, doing a ton of journaling, trying to work through and process all that I was feeling and all the thoughts running through my head. All of this might sound a little dramatic, but what was really happening was this – I was comparing myself to my sisters and “shoulding” all over myself.
One of the things I wrote in my journal and also spoke out loud to my husband was “I want something to just fall in my lap. Then I’ll know it’s right.”
Fast forward to August of 2021. I received a phone call about teaching third grade for the 2021-2022 school year. Mike and I barely had to talk it over because I had asked for something to fall in my lap, and we both knew this was it.
I had the privilege of spending the next ten months with the sweetest group of third graders you’ve ever seen in your life. At first it was like drinking water through a fire hose. I was totally overwhelmed with all the new, but I absolutely LOVED it! The kids and I had fun every single day. I think about our mornings solving the Wordle, talking about football, taking walks with our class pet turtle, Harvey, and it makes me smile and feels warm and wonderful in my soul. That school year was a gift.
How It’s Going
So here we are. It’s September of 2022. I’m back to working from home, focusing on my business and on my team, taking kids to and from school, making lunches, doing the things.
I feel aligned and content with my choice.
Here’s what I’ve learned and will probably have to relearn because that’s how life is, right?
When you get stuck in your own head, comparing yourself to others, “shoulding” all over yourself, take time to process, to journal, to meditate. Talk to someone. We have all been there. We will all be there again. It’s ok. But recognize it for what it is. That’s why I love journaling because it helps you to get to the bottom of where your feelings are coming from and what they’re really all about.
Life isn’t binary. You don’t have to pick something and do it forever. You don’t have to give something up and never go back to it. I loved teaching last year. Is it possible I will do it again at some point? Sure! There is not a right or wrong answer. We have choices. We can be curious and try things. We can decide that we need to put something down only to later pick it back up. It’s all ok. I have been paralyzed by decision making for fear of making the wrong decision. This past year has taught me that the majority of decisions aren’t right or wrong, they’re just choices. Recognizing that is so freeing.
My sisters… our relationship is evolving. They both have full time jobs outside of our skincare businesses. Our conversations are different. For one thing, we have to schedule them. Now we’re talking about kids in college and adult kids and pretty much every episode of the “we can do hard things” podcast, and they’re also still the same. We’re still sharing recipes and books we love and podcasts to listen to. We still have things to say and share. If it’s ok with you, we’ll share some of them here on the Like a Sister Blog. We hope you find value and meaning here and that our stories and writings connect with you. I love how Glennon Doyle says that truth telling makes people feel less alone. We hope our real life stories do that for you.
