I’m Still Like You

This isn’t for the woman who always knew this was what she wanted.

This is for the one who arrived here from somewhere else.

There is plenty of content out there for the woman who always knew this was her path. She has found her people. This isn’t for her.

This is for the woman who arrived here with a CV, a professional identity, a version of herself the world once had clear language for — and is still working out what to do with everything she brought with her.

It’s Monday.

You put on some jeans. A slightly oversized tee. Comfortable trainers — a pop of colour.

Your uniform. Ready for anything.

Somewhere in your house, another version of your life is waiting.

In the spare room there is another wardrobe. It’s filled with blazers for meetings. Smart shoes that expected office corridors. A dress that once made perfect sense on a Tuesday morning.

Sometimes you go into that room for something else entirely — a bag, a book, something you put down and forgot — and you see them.

You catch yourself thinking, almost automatically:

What a nice wardrobe.

Where would I wear any of this now?

It’s not sadness.

More like recognition. These clothes were designed for a version of your life that is paused — or perhaps simply changed.

The clothes you actually wear most days serve a different purpose. Able to survive playground surfaces and small hands with sticky fingers.

They work perfectly well.

They just don’t tell the whole story of who you are.

“So what do you do?”

It used to be an easy question.

The words were ready, sitting comfortably at the front of your mind. They carried the weight of years of study, work, reputation, competence. A shorthand. Someone heard your answer and knew, roughly, who they were talking to.

Now there is often a pause.

Not a dramatic one. Just long enough for a small calculation.

You’re mentally sizing up the person asking. How much to say. Which version of yourself to offer.

The dentist’s receptionist asks while typing without looking up.

For a brief moment you consider giving her your old job title. It would be quicker. And it’s not entirely wrong.

The form at the school has the same box.

A new acquaintance at the parents’ morning turns to you with genuine interest. The question is always the same.

So is the pause.

Do you say what you used to do?

Do you say what you do now?

Do you explain?

None of the available answers quite fits the space.

LinkedIn grows quiet after a while. The system that once had a category for you doesn’t quite know where to place you now.

The messages slow.

The algorithm quietly files you away.

Time has passed for them too.

You just weren’t there to see it.

When you do log in, there’s a small moment of trepidation. You scan the updates — promotions, job changes, industry news. It’s all continuing without you.

One catches your attention. Someone you used to sit beside is now a Director. You’re happy for her. Of course. There’s no jealousy. It’s something quieter than that. It’s wondering — would you have got there too?

You find yourself doing the maths.

And then there are the people you worked well with. Achieved things with. Real friendships, in the way work friendships are real — built on shared goals, shared frustrations, the person you pinged to meet for a quick coffee when the days were most challenging.

People you always thought — when the time comes, I could reach out to them. They’d remember me. They’d remember I was good.

But now that idea feels awkward. Lives have grown apart.

Before you can reconnect, before you can ask for anything, you have to explain.

You are no longer just reaching out.

You are reappearing.

And reappearing requires context.

The gap needs a narrative.

“You’ll go back once the kids are in school, right?”

Sometimes that is the plan. You may have even said it yourself.

And yet hearing it said out loud can feel strangely like an affront.

Not because the person means anything by it. Most of the time they are simply trying to understand the shape of your life. To place you somewhere familiar.

But the question quietly assumes that this part of the story is temporary. A pause. A detour from who you really are.

As if someone has gently fast-forwarded the story of your life to a later chapter, skipping over the one you’re actually living.

As if this period only really makes sense as a waiting room.

The life you are living now does not feel like a waiting room.

It feels like a full chapter. Complicated. Demanding. Real.

Meanwhile the skills are still there.

They haven’t gone anywhere.

You notice this in the smallest places.

The family Google calendar, for example. What began as a simple way to track paediatrician appointments and swimming lessons has, at some point, become a project management tool.

Colour coding. Notes. Timing buffers. Logistics mapped out with the same care you once gave to meetings and deadlines.

Nobody needs quite this level of detail for a dentist appointment.

But you can’t quite help yourself.

It’s simply how your mind works.

And there are new skills too. Ones no job description ever prepared you for.

Negotiation. Emotional regulation. The management of very small, very unreasonable people with very strong opinions about the colour of their cup. It occurs to you that some of your most demanding professional experiences were, in fact, excellent preparation for this.

The same drive, organisation and attention you once brought to your work didn’t disappear when you stepped away from it.

It simply found somewhere else to go.

Your husband comes home with news from a performance review. It went well. A promotion. Recognition.

You are genuinely pleased. Of course you are. You remember what those moments feel like — the small relief beforehand, the careful neutrality walking into the meeting, the letter afterwards.

Someone in authority putting it in black and white: this is what you are good at. This is where you stand.

The memory surfaces.

The letter you once received that said you were exceptional.

Nobody writes that letter for what you are doing now.

Later, without quite planning to, you find yourself bringing up a performance review of your own. An old one. A good one. You’re not sure who you’re telling the story for.

He already knows you’re capable. You know that.

But saying it out loud — I was exceptional at this, someone wrote it down — feels necessary in a way you didn’t anticipate.

And yet the work is real.

The responsibility is continuous. The stakes are high. There is no training programme, no onboarding, no pat on the back where someone says — you handled that well.

The work expands to fill the day.

And then quietly beyond it.

But the systems that normally reflect competence back to a person simply don’t exist here.

No review.
No easy answer to what do you do.

The capability remains.

Unwitnessed.
But not alone.

I see you.

The wardrobe in the spare room.
The letter that said exceptional.
The pause before you answer.

I’m still like you.

I’m just proving it somewhere the system isn’t looking.