Midlife Career Change: Why I Left My Dream Job at Almost 40

At 38, I decided I was going to make a midlife career change.

Not like your typical “midlife career change” where you leave some soul-sucking job to go back to school and chase your dream because your money-making job paid well in actual money, but also paid in therapy because it sucked so bad.

No. I HAD the dream job.

And at 38, I decided I wanted a lame-ass job.

So that’s what I did.

I took a remote customer service role. I downgraded. I took a pay cut. I started doing simple work.

You may ask why are you looking for a new career?

Why would I drop my marine biology career where I got to SCUBA dive for a living??

Because I was feeling burned out.

I was living in a coastal state where I couldn’t afford to buy a house. Yes, standard millennial nearing 40, still can’t afford a house. I was living in a city. I had the “cool” career, the field stories, the science identity, the ocean life.

But mission-driven science and public-sector work often asks people like you to:

• Over-give.
• Under-earn.
• Accept instability as virtue.

And that’s what I did for nearly 18 years with my marine ecology career. And I was tired and fed up.

When the Dream Job Stops Feeling Like the Dream

I’ve always wanted to live closer to nature. To be in the mountains with trees, near lakes, and oceans and have time to explore.

After having a child, my priorities shifted hard.

And let me tell you, I always told myself I never wanted to be a SAHM. I didn’t want motherhood to interfere with my career. I was going to crush both.

Ah, to be young and naive again.

Well, that changed.

I was tired of living in the city and tired of my hour-plus commute to the ocean for work. I was tired of barely seeing my daughter because fieldwork sometimes meant leaving the house before she got up and only getting home for her nighttime routine, which wasn’t exactly quality time after she’d already been at daycare for nine hours.

I had back pain from years of field work lifting heavy SCUBA tanks, oyster castles, core sediment samples and coolers filled with water quality testing bottles over unstable rocky shores and slippery seagrass.

And I’m a marine ecologist in New England.

This is not tropical ecology, okay? This is not warm water and cute little coral reef content. This is cold, wet, windy, and not for the faint of heart. A lot of times, I was out on the water in the middle of winter, freezing my ass off.

And mostly, I was tired of the low pay, government work bullshit, and egotistical men with PhDs.

I just wanted more time back in my day.

Why I Blew Up the Plan and Moved to Maine

First, I decided I wanted to move to Maine, to get back to my nature dream. 

Then I asked myself: what is going to help me get there?

Before, my husband used to say, “Well, let’s find a job and then we can move.”

This time, we said, “Where do we want to live?” and went from there.

That sounds cute and inspirational until you realize good jobs are hard to come by in Maine depending on your field. And I’m a marine ecologist, so those jobs are hard to come by in general.

Also, as you get older, your salary needs to increase because you accrue bills, responsibilities, and a family. Shocking, I know.

My position before was grant-funded. And although I had funded another year of work, soft-money jobs were not for me. I don’t like feeling like I have to fund my own job, even though I knew people who have successfully done it for 20 years.

So I decided the fastest way to get to Maine was not for both of us to magically find perfect jobs in the same area at the same time.

I was starting a new career at 40, so I decided to look for an entry-level remote job while my husband looked for jobs in Maine.

And mind you, this so-called “entry-level” remote role paid about the same as my marine ecologist research position.

So yes, I was technically taking a step back.

But financially?

Not as much as you’d think, which says a lot about how underpaid marine science can be.

My husband eventually got a job offer and we moved.

I also found out I was pregnant before accepting my new position, so we eventually moved to rural Maine with my 3 year old while I was four months pregnant with my second child.

Because apparently I like chaos.

And yes, I’ve gotten jobs while pregnant twice now. So if you want the full story on job hunting while pregnant, comment below and I’ll tell you about it.

Switching Careers After Almost 20 Years in Marine Science

My decision to take a remote role after spending almost 20 years in the field came down to one thing:

What I prioritized had shifted.

I had spent so long identifying as a marine scientist. Proving myself as a woman scientist. Proving I was smart enough to do research. Proving I belonged even when my confidence in STEM was still a work in progress.

I thought marine science was the coolest field (and still do). And even though I complained about being out to sea in the middle of winter, I also once felt very badass. Like I was a salty weathered fisherman.

I even thought maybe I should just stay in it because this blog stemmed from my career as a marine ecologist. It was my niche.

And then I thought: is anyone going to take advice from a customer support person? 

But I wanted this remote job because I wanted more time in my day.

Time I would have spent commuting could go toward writing my blog. Or writing during lunch. Or squeezing it in between meetings. Or just being able to spend my morning snuggling with my daughter before school and not up at 5 am so I can make it to my field site for low tide.

It is a means to an end for me.

And I don’t think I’ll ever abandon marine science. Even though the system failed me in a lot of ways, I will always love marine science. It’s in my Portuguese blood. 

But I realized something important:

My 20 years as a woman in science, were not erased because I left the field.

I still have my education.
My training.
My lived experience.
My field scars.
My stories.
My bullshit detector.

Those things are with me for life.

When Passion Doesn’t Pay Bills

For people in marine science and STEM, work can become your whole personality because we’re told passion should be enough.

But passion doesn’t pay bills.

Passion doesn’t prevent burnout.

Passion doesn’t give you your time back.

We justify working late to submit grant proposals because it’s going to fund great work that will help the environment. And not to knock all environmental scientists out there, but shit, we aren’t going to win the Nobel Peace Prize or cure cancer.

That doesn’t mean the work doesn’t matter.

It does.

But sometimes, we need to realize we are just not THAT important. We act like every deadline is life or death, and that level of pressure can eat you alive. The world is not going to end if you close your laptop, eat dinner with your family, and submit the damn thing in the morning. Spend more time doing the things you love, however cliché that sounds. And please don’t prioritize your love of the ocean over your actual life.

I get it. You love the work. You love the ocean. You love the mission. Same. But being obsessed with your job does not make it healthy. Working insane hours because you’re “passionate” is still working insane hours.

At some point, you have to ask yourself if your dream job is supporting your life or quietly swallowing it whole?

How Motherhood Made Me Rethink My Career

When I had my first child at 36, things started to change.

Slowly but surely.

I took a very busy, shitty job at a university and had a terrible boss who had no kids, whose career was her entire personality, and who had been at the same place for 30 years.

Ah, boomers.

And having that job was enough for me to ask:

Wait a minute. Why am I working so hard for something I don’t even want?

I had to take time, and I’m still doing this now,  to realize what I actually want from life.

You need to get clear on what you want so you can start taking action to get there.

I wasn’t sure what the next version of my life would look like, but I knew this wasn’t it.

And sometimes you don’t need your decisions to be exactly right.

You just need your next step to be headed in the right direction.

Moving to Maine was the right direction for me.

Why I Left City Life for a Slower Life in Nature

I used to fantasize about living on the water. In my head, it was always a beach house, because, of course it was. But honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a more peaceful, secluded house tucked between trees on a beautiful lake. 

And now, as I write this, I’m gazing out the window at the same kind of life I used to daydream about.

At night, when I write, I hear the loons giving their beautiful yet eerie call from time to time. It’s the kind of thing I used to think I wanted “someday,” until I realized someday was not going to magically show up unless I actually changed something.

And that was the whole point.

I didn’t just want to move to Maine for the trees, the lake, or the slower pace. I wanted a life that gave me more time back.

I wanted a remote job so I could see my daughter more. So I could pick her up from school. So I could make up my hours later. So my whole life didn’t revolve around commuting, field schedules, and trying to squeeze motherhood into the scraps of my day.

And secretly, I was really hoping I could blog while working remotely because I know some people who were able to swing that in between getting their work done.

But it has been hard.

Now being almost 40. Pregnant. In a new area. In a new career shift.

And I realized how much of my identity was tied to what I did.

So having this remote customer support role has been difficult, to say the least. It is not nearly as slow as I had fantasized, and it definitely has not been some peaceful little laptop-by-the-lake montage.

But it did get me closer to the life I said I wanted.

And sometimes that’s the part we forget. A change doesn’t have to feel perfect right away to still be the right direction.

Moving Doesn’t Magically Fix Everything

I’m not gonna lie. It has taken some time to rid the city out of my system.

It doesn’t matter how perfect a move may seem. Moving to Maine was still an adjustment.

I moved away from family while four months pregnant with a three-year-old. Living in Maine, it now takes me about 15 minutes to drive to a coffee shop when I used to be a five-minute walk from one.

So yes, for me, it was a big shift.

I also moved to a more rural area and took a remote job, so I definitely felt more isolated than I expected, especially as a naturally outgoing person who likes being around people.

I had my bouts of anxiety.

The “oh shit, was this the right decision?” moments.

And even now, sometimes that thought pops into my head when I’m driving 45 minutes to a decent restaurant that isn’t a bar or pizza joint.

I have moments of panic.

What if I made the wrong decision?

What if this doesn’t work out?

But that’s the great thing about life.

You can always change your circumstances. You can always take agency over your life.

We have more control than we think we do.

It’s just a matter of how hard you’re willing to work for the life you actually want.

Because starting over is almost never easy.

But changing your life is so worth it.

Taking a Career Break From Science Doesn’t Mean You Failed

I’m not leaving science.

I’m changing how I fund the rest of my life.

You are not burning bridges. You are repositioning.

You can still advocate. Volunteer. Write. Serve on boards. Teach. Mentor.

Your career isn’t erased because you take a break.

Is it harder for women who take a break from their careers?

Sure.

But it’s not impossible, so don’t let that stop you.

I don’t think I’ll ever be fully done with marine science. There is still a lot of marine science to do here, even if I now live on a freshwater lake about an hour from the ocean, which is very different from where I was before moving to Maine.

And it doesn’t mean I won’t go back.

It just means I’m allowed to choose work that supports my life, not just my ideals.

You’re Allowed to Want a Different Life

A midlife career change doesn’t mean you failed.

Sometimes it means you finally stopped confusing endurance with happiness.

And I know, little by little, my decisions have put me in the right direction.

This area might not be my forever home, but opening my eyes to the sunlight poking through the trees outside the lake is doing my soul wonders.

Even if my remote job is not.

Hell, I am a perfect example that even having the dream job, or what many people think is the dream job, isn’t always enough to make you happy or satisfied.

Things change.

Priorities shift.

You are allowed to blow up your life mid-career or mid-life.

It’s never too late to change.

You’re never too old to start.

Is it scary? Yes.

Is it a shit ton of work? Also yes.

But so is living the next 20 years convincing yourself that because you are comfortable, you are happy.

You can do five years or less of hard work and at least know you are moving in the right direction.

Make the changes.

Life is hard.

Choose your hard.

Changing Careers at 40: The Shit I Wish Someone Told Me

You’re allowed to change your mind.

You’re allowed to change your life.

You’re allowed to want flexibility.

You’re allowed to be ambitious and still want a slower, simpler life.

There are so many memes circling about how we’re all burned out and just want a simple, peaceful life. Most of us are over crushing 40+ hours a week, being tired all the damn time, and only living for the weekend.

So if you know things aren’t working, or haven’t been working for years now, make a change that puts you in the right direction.

You don’t have to blow up your life like I did.

But you also don’t want to wait for a breakdown, layoff, birth, death, move, burnout, or some other life-changing event to finally ask yourself:

Is this still working for me?

Go on with your bad self and do the things.

You’re allowed to choose work that supports your life.

You’re not losing yourself.

You’re taking care of her.

Passion Matters, But Peace Matters Too

I blew up my marine science career for a dumb-ass job at almost 40.

And honestly?

There’s nothing wrong with taking what looks like a step back if it gets you closer to the life you actually want.

I’ve written before about whether marine biology is worth it  and how passion can be worth it because you work most of your life. But this is the other side of that conversation.

Sometimes you fall out of love with what you’re doing.

Sometimes you still love the field, but not the system.

Sometimes you don’t want to grind for passion anymore. You want flexibility. You want to work from anywhere. You want to see your family. You want to pick up your kid. You want to get your nails done on your lunch break.

And you know what?

There is nothing wrong with that either.

Passion can matter.

But peace matters too.

Your career isn’t over because you pause, pivot, or take a job other people don’t understand.

And if the “dream job” stops supporting the life you actually want?

You’re allowed to blow up the plan.

Now go on and get it.

Love,

Salty Sereia