Don’t Forget, You Are More Than Your Job.

After almost 10 years at Facebook/Meta, the time has come to close the chapter. I’d be lying if I didn’t say the last year or so at the company has been really hard, but I also wouldn’t be doing any justice to this season of my life if I didn’t acknowledge how incredible it all was during most of my time there.

I’ve often felt that working at Facebook this long was like getting another graduate degree; I’d say that by now, I have a Master’s Degree in “hacking through my life.” However, along with that new degree, came a slow loss of my professional identity. I became “Karen from Instagram” instead of a person with real interests, curiosities, strengths and self-identifiable skills. This isn’t anyone’s fault, I think in my case, it just came in the package of working at such a hugely impactful place during a highly relevant moment. In the last few years, particularly after becoming a mother, I’ve had a really hard time identifying what I’m actually good at, and what I really bring to the table at my job. “Faking” that confidence everyday has been exhausting and contributed to creating this false version of self. None of this happened overnight, it’s all been a very slow burn and has taken lots of self-reflection to really understand.

What My Last almost 10 Years Have Looked Like

When I joined Facebook I was 28 years-old, in a new relationship, and 100% focused on building the career of my dreams. I measured my success by how well my resumé looked and how globally recognizable each company name that I added was. I remember my first week here, I flew to Menlo Park and couldn’t understand how I’d made it there. The impostor syndrome was so real, especially because I felt like so many of my new coworkers came from ivy league schools, and had life paths that seemed like they were perfectly curated by the generations before them to help them have no other option than to succeed in their lives. At this point, I also realized what being a “minority” actually meant — to be clear, Facebook of 2013 is not Meta of 2023 in that aspect, so at the time it was a very shocking and humbling experience for me.

The first half of my time at the company, I was focused on working in Latin America, I worked with the most important media companies in the region, and prioritized partnering with them for widely recognizable moments, such as the Olympics, the World Cup, national elections, and award shows. It was truly the best time of my entire career thus far, and like they say in Spanish “nadie te quita lo bailado” — I lived this season to the fullest. However, my dreams didn’t quite fit in LATAM — and candidly, I could never get over the fact that I felt like I was never “Latina enough” for them. Maybe it was just in my head, but the feeling was there.

I also knew that like so many other hispanic professionals across so many industries, I wanted to experience the crossover. I specifically remember pitching myself for my next role by saying… I want to sit at the table where decisions are made for the “general market” (aka: North America), because I AM the general market, I am actually the face of America and I should take part in our decision-making moments as such. Within a few months, I became part of the North America Partnerships team. The irony here was that although I’ve also loved this leg of my time at the company, I deeply yearned to reconnect with my culture… I often felt “too latina” for this work as well.

Regardless, during this second half of my time at Meta, I had a front-row seat to this company and was able to watch it really grow up and face hard “adulting” decisions. We experienced highs and lows, all while moving quickly with an ever-changing creator industry. I had the chance to speak at conferences all the way from India to Australia. I organized the company’s first “Creator Day” from the jump, all while managing some of our most important global creator relationships. As I write this, it sounds huge, and I think I often didn’t realize how huge it was at that moment.

In 2019 I became a parent, and that really changed things for me. I struggled to pair my professional self with my newfound identity as a mother… it just didn’t seem like there was enough time to be both. I later on realized that it was because I was trying to be both at the same time, and I truly believe you simply can’t. Some days, you have to take your losses and understand that you won’t be the most available mom, and other days, your job will be the one taking the hit when your little ones need you most. My daughter is now 4 years-old, and I feel like I’ve been able to balance this aspect of my life, however my professional self has been feeling lost and somewhat unfulfilled for a while.

Accepting Change

Leaving a company like this is hard. Leaving a salary like this is hard. The list of things that I’ve had to process in order to process this change is worth years of therapy. Here are the hardest things I’m working through:

• Learning Who I am Now. Honestly, being “karen from instagram” has been really comfortable for so long. When you have this behind your name, it’s rare that people won’t want to talk to you if you reach out. It’s now a new season for me and a time to redesign my identity. I have to dig into who I really am and what I bring to the table beyond the company I represented.
• Reminding Myself That I Didn’t Fail. The thought of walking away from this company, knowing that I never had a bigger title, I didn’t manage a team, or get wider recognition, is a complicated thought. I arrived here full-throttle, but then got sort of stuck. I feel like part of it is my fault, but I’m also aware there are other factors that really didn’t allow me to thrive. I will lean into every single moment that a creator thanked me for helping them unlock something new, every co-worker that ever reached out privately to me as a mentor, every person that I helped resolve some sort of impossible issue that was pivotal to their business. I did a lot here and I can’t ignore my accomplishments. I’ll be working hard now on framing this life change as “making space” for something new for myself.
• No Longer Being Anyone’s Backup Plan. This one cuts deep. As a daughter of immigrants, first-daughter, “type A” personality as hell (as per TikTok haha), it’s been my whole life’s mission to have the financial power to be able to resolve any of my extended family’s issues. My dream has always been to be able to fund anything my parents have ever needed (even though they rarely accept anything). With the ambiguity ahead for my career, letting this go is hard, especially in a time when they’re also winding down. But also accepting that prioritizing my “own family” — meaning my immediate formed family — is also an equally hard concept to lean into.

What’s Next For Me:

I’m excited to have a blank slate ahead. I’m excited to be a more present mother, and take on more of my daughter’s innate mindfulness and stop rushing from one thing to the next with her just because I have to jump on a call or send some emails.

I’ll also be dedicating some time to my well-being. We’re well into some fertility treatments, and I feel like clearing up my calendar is probably the most desired yet most complicated prescription to get.

For years now, I’ve loved a side gig, so I’ll have more time and energy to dedicate to both Motherish and my Airbnb. It’s exciting to not have as many boundaries for those anymore.

And more importantly, I’m excited for the reinvention of who I am, professionally. I feel like I’m capable of lots of things that I haven’t even tried yet, or likely haven’t even thought of yet — so I’m excited for my future full of firsts. I’ve always been a dreamer and creative, I think it might be time to exercise those sides of me a little bit more now that I have the time and space to do so.

So for now, I’ll go back to just being Karen Comas. Human. Mother. Badass.