One Ticket to the Corporate Rollercoaster, Please

Perhaps Billy Joel was onto something when he sang about how moving up isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. During my 20 years in corporate America, there have been plenty of moments when I’ve wondered whether I wanted to keep moving up or simply get off the ride.

For a long time, though, corporate America felt like the path I was expected to follow. I graduated from college, needed to support myself financially, and went to work. My mother was a well-respected corporate executive who devoted her entire career to one company. As a child, watched her closely as she climbed the career ladder, studied vigorously at night to earn her MBA, and raised me as a single mom. There were trade-offs and sacrifices, but she loved her career. Her passion for her work made a lasting impression on me, and I followed a similar path.

My own career has been a series of miniature roller coasters. The highs have been incredible, and the lows have been downright awful. For a while, the elusive idea of work-life balance seemed achievable. Then I became pregnant with my first daughter. After my second daughter was born, balance became even harder to define, let alone maintain.

I wanted to prove to myself that I could be an amazing mother and a successful career woman at the same time. I still believe women can have everything we want. We’re badass rock stars, after all. But I’ve learned that having everything doesn’t mean giving everything equal attention at the same time. Something inevitably gets pushed aside or tossed away with the hope that we’ll come back for it later.

For me, that something was myself.

It wasn’t until I was completely burned out from trying to do everything at once that I realized how much of myself I had set aside. That was when I started writing. At first, it was small pieces of fiction and poetry written whenever I felt lost or needed to decompress after a long day.

Eventually, I began secretly writing a novel. I loved storytelling, but I never imagined I would let anyone read what I had written. Writing was simply a place where I could find the parts of myself that had become buried beneath work, motherhood, and the pressure to keep everything moving.

Then the roller coaster took its steepest drop: I was laid off.

Companies merge and get acquired all the time, but I never thought I would come face-to-face with that reality. I was riding my stationary bike when the news flashed across my phone.

Suddenly, it didn’t matter how hard I had worked to get where I was, how many sacrifices I had made, or how many leaders and colleagues had championed my career. I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A layoff has a way of making you question who you are without your title, your meetings, and the responsibilities that once filled your days. But mine has also taught me that I am much more than my corporate career. Every day, I surprise myself as I learn more about who Lauryn is beyond her all-business demeanor.

I’ve learned how to build and maintain a vegetable garden, something I never would have made the time to learn or even attempt before. I’ve made my daughters a priority over work and other events, and I even volunteered to become the Girl Scout troop leader. Most importantly, I’ve discovered that a career can take many shapes and sizes. It doesn’t have to be a continuous climb toward a bigger title or the next promotion. Sometimes it takes an unexpected turn and introduces you to a version of yourself you might not have met otherwise.

Losing my job didn’t erase my career. It forced me to see how much more could belong within it.

I thought again about the novel I had been secretly writing and the part of myself I had promised I would return to someday. Fast-forward a few years, and that novel is now published. I’m still astonished and grateful that people besides my family have read it. That stamp of approval propelled me to write my second novel and helped me begin redefining my career as an author.

I’m not closing the door on corporate America. I think being a business professional is in my blood, and perhaps I’ll find another wonderful job that checks all the boxes. But I no longer believe one job gets to define an entire career. My writing and my books are part of mine now, too.

For 20 years, I thought progress meant continuing to move up. This unexpected drop has taught me that a meaningful career isn’t always a straight climb. Sometimes the ride changes direction.

Sometimes we choose to get off. And sometimes, if we’re lucky, we realize we have more power than we thought to decide where it takes us next.