Becoming a 🦋

Lately, I’ve been wrestling with the idea of updating my job status on LinkedIn to officially mark my resignation. Why have I been putting it off? And why does it even matter?

I know this profile doesn’t define who I am, but for many, LinkedIn has become a curated resume of titles, accolades, and status. It also maps out our detours, our pauses, and the chapters we closed. For me, it’s been a stone in my shoe.

I haven’t touched my profile since I resigned seven weeks ago. For the first two weeks, I obsessed over what to do with that dreadful word “Present” next to my old role. The truth is, I wasn’t mentally present there for the last six months. And after I left, even glancing at my profile felt like reopening a wound.

Now that I’ve finally made peace with what happened, I realized that next month would have marked my three-year anniversary. I didn’t want to get those hollow “Congrats on your work anniversary!” messages so I knew it was time to face my profile and update it.

Then a new question surfaced: what do I put as my “present” now?
Do I leave it blank and accept my unemployment, so publicly?

I didn’t want to explain. I didn’t want to write a post justifying that I chose to take three months off to recover from burnout. I didn’t want to share what I’m actually doing: learning how to sewing, cook and even enrolled in a beginner art program because, honestly, I feared my network would think I’d lost my mind.

Some days I think I should just say something simple. Other days, I want to delete the whole thing and never think about it again.

If I’m being honest, part of me doesn’t want to post anything because I know there are people who might feel happy seeing me unemployed. We all have critics. But is that really a good reason to not to anything about it?

Then I came across this quote from Glennon Doyle:

“Ask a woman who she is, and she’ll tell you who she loves, who she serves, and what she does. I am a mother, a wife, a sister, a friend, a career woman. The fact that we define ourselves by our roles is what keeps the world spinning. It’s also what makes us untethered and afraid. If a woman defines herself as a career woman, what happens when the company folds? Who we are is perpetually being taken from us, so we live in fear instead of peace.
-Glennon Doyle

Reading it, I finally understood why I couldn’t bring myself to change it. That job had become my identity. I was a product designer, a visual designer, a hard worker, a contributor, a collaborator, a growing leader. Without that title, I didn’t know who I was.

Glennon was right. I had been living in fear because I let a company and a few managers define me. When that sandcastle crumbled, so did the version of me I thought was real.

Over the past seven weeks, I’ve asked myself a lot of hard questions. I cried. I felt defeated. I journaled every day. I painted whatever came to mind. I sketched dreams and nightmares. I stayed in solitude. I didn’t apply to jobs or chase a new skillset. I stopped trying to be anything. I just existed with myself.

And in that space, I let go of the urge to prove or perform. I realized I no longer want to chase roles or titles. I just want to be me.

I now see that I am a creative being. I am an artist. I am stubborn. I am caring. I am empathetic, imperfect, and above all, a work in progress.

And I will no longer let anyone define me by a role. I want to build something that reflects who I really am. After all, I am the builder, not the castle.

As for LinkedIn, I’ll be updating it today quietly. I am not putting #opentowork I will not be putting “on a career break” message. I am closing that chapter and will turn that pain into meaningful art.

To live a life of her own, each woman must also answer: What do I love? What makes me come alive? What is beauty to me, and when do I take the time to fill up with it? Who is the soul beneath all of these roles? Each woman must answer these questions now, before the tide comes. Sandcastles are beautiful, but we cannot live inside them. Because the tide rises. That’s what the tide does. We must remember: I am the builder, not the castle
– Glenn Doyle