May 2022. This is a post from the beginning of the pandemic. It’s been sitting in my draft folder for more than two years now. I am publishing it without revising, so please excuse its rough draft form.
On Tuesday, I was laid off. It’s not a thing that has happened to me before. Quit in a fit of anger? Sure more than once. Give my notice because I just couldn’t face going to the job for longer than the two weeks? That’s happened too.
But until Tuesday, I’d not sat in on a conference call (because we’re all working from home due to the pandemic) and heard the CEO of my company do her best to not cry as she told us that we all were done.
I’m not going to lie, I felt a sinking feeling, and then what shot through me and stayed with me the rest of the day was elation. I’d been wanting to leave for a long time now, but wasn’t able to give my notice with nothing on the horizon and have worked too hard to be a responsible adult to flounce out in anger.
Since then, I’ve cycled through worry and panic, but where I always settled back to is the freedom of not having to go to that job any more. Or at least not having to go to that job anymore after March 31, which is our last day.
Today Matt and I visited the accountant and we found out that we were both getting a tax return. That’s money I can squirrel away. I got to ask her about unemployment and accounting things. It seemed great timing, being laid off right before our already scheduled visit.
I’ve got a list a mile long. Several lists a mile long. Things I’m excited to do at home, things that I need to do to get things in order to start looking for work. Things to do to grow the side businesses. I haven’t gotten to write down most of these lists because I’m wrapping things up at work.
But I’m excited to make the lists, to squirrel things away, to hunker down, to be frugal. It feels like an adventure. A scary one amidst a global pandemic and social distancing and my very real worry that the economy is going to tank, but an adventure nonetheless.