When God Redirects Your Hustle (Again)

Unemployment, here we come.

But this time, I wasn’t walking into it with youthful freedom and a suitcase full of Plan Bs.
This time, I had a toddler. A mouth to feed. A future to build—not just mine, ours.
And even though the fear crept in like a thief, I reminded myself:
I had a degree. I had purpose. I had grit.

My bachelor’s degree cracked open doors that once felt bolted shut.
Not because I knew exactly what I wanted to do,
but because I refused to let life back me into a corner.
So I took to cold-emailing schools and companies that hadn’t posted a thing.
Didn’t matter. I wasn’t asking—I was declaring.
You need me. You just don’t know it yet.

One email. One résumé. One letter of boldness landed in the right inbox.
The CEO called. A teacher had resigned midyear from burnout.
They hadn’t even gone public with it yet.
I walked into that interview, and by the time I walked out,
I had a job offer and a classroom waiting.

Me—a teacher. The irony.
I used to roll my eyes when folks assumed English majors wanted to teach.
I wanted to write scripts, not syllabi.
I wanted red carpets, not red pens.
But here I was—with an emergency teaching permit and a heart cracked wide open.

The school was built for students in the foster care system.
And they were raw, real, and resilient in ways that humbled me.
Some had seen more by 15 than most do in a lifetime.
They didn’t need a savior. They needed someone stable.
Present. Loving. Real.

So that’s who I became.

We studied literature, yes.
But we also studied life.
We talked about credit, heartbreak, identity, survival.
We danced to Rihanna.
We cried over injustices.
We made space for healing in between commas and essay prompts.

And just down the street was the daycare that let me peek in on my baby throughout the day.
It felt aligned. Purposeful. Full circle.

Until it wasn’t.

Because motherhood is unpredictable, and toddlers don’t get sick on a schedule.
And every time he caught a new virus from daycare, I had to miss work.
That’s what mothers do. We show up where we’re needed most.
But employers… they don’t always understand or even care about that kind of devotion.

After one too many absences, I was called into the office.
A new principal—a Black mother, like me—sat across from me with eyes that understood.
She didn’t want to do it, but she had to.
They’d found a permanent teacher.
And just like that, my time was up.

I couldn't hold it together in her office.
I cried right there in front of her.
Picked up my son with swollen eyes and a numb heart.
Not again.

I was exhausted.
Not just from the jobs, or the layoffs, or the daycare germs—
but from the weight of constantly trying to keep it together.
The performance of stability,
when all I really wanted was something sustainable.

What was I supposed to do now?

I journaled.
I prayed.
I Googled until 2AM.
And then something clicked—not glamorous, not traditional, but possible.

A path that could work for me. For us.

One that honored my ambition and my goals for motherhood.
One that didn't force me to choose between provision and presence.

It wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t easy.

But it was mine to build.

Sometimes, survival teaches you strategy.
And when survival meets vision?
That’s when legacy begins.

To be continued...