Today marks one year since I was laid off from a role I had for over six years. I still remember exactly what I was doing when I received the dreaded email from someone I thought I could trust. No, just kidding. I knew he wasn't someone I could trust, but he certainly acted like he was. I was doing a Peloton class when the email came through, and I spent the rest of that class dreading the meeting I knew was coming. I had to wait 3-4 hours from the moment I received the email to when the meeting was actually scheduled. I had an inkling of what was happening, so I made sure to download everything I needed. I even managed to say somewhat of a goodbye to some of my coworkers. They told me I had nothing to worry about. That I was overthinking it. I definitely wasn't. I got on the call. HR was there. They fed me all the usual lines: I was doing a great job, this wasn't about my performance, blah blah blah, restructuring blah blah blah. I don't remember much of what was actually said. I kind of blacked out. I only remember because I recorded the call, and I still haven't really been able to bring myself to watch it. The months that followed were some of the hardest I've had professionally. Job hunting was absolutely miserable. I applied to nearly 150 jobs in the span of 7 months. I did a ton of interviews. I questioned myself constantly, despite knowing what I was capable of. One company put me through NINE interviews (5 panel ones) before ultimately ghosting me. Nine. It was a referral, too, which somehow made it even more frustrating. Eventually, a different recruiter from the same company reached out to apologize on behalf of the recruiter who had ghosted me. Maybe I'll write about it one day -- I need to first revisit that NDA I signed though. By then, the bridge was already burned. I didn't bother responding. At the time, I wrote a lot about what it felt like to lose a job after allowing my career to become so intertwined with my identity. I wrote about redefining my worth. About feeling stuck somewhere between release and resentment. About drowning in the in-between, trying to keep myself busy because I was afraid of what would happen if I stopped moving. I don't want to pretend that getting laid off was some great gift the universe gave me. It wasn't. It sucked. I was miserable. I hated job hunting. I hated interviewing. I hated having to repeatedly sell myself to people who knew nothing about me and convince them that I was good enough to hire. But there is something I can see now that I couldn't see then: I had been coming up with excuses to stay for a long time. I was unhappy, but there was always a reason to wait. Maybe things would get better. Maybe the next project would be different. Maybe I just needed a break. Maybe I should stay a little longer. I probably would have kept doing that. So, in the grand scheme of things, maybe I needed the decision to be made for me. I just wish it didn't have to happen that way. I'm employed again now, and I'm relatively happy with where I landed. In a lot of ways, I'm better off than I was before. I became a better interviewee, learned how to talk about my work differently, and learned that I could survive a period of uncertainty that once felt impossible to get through. I guess it made me a little stronger. Ugh, I hate being a cliche. I still could have done without it. I probably could have learned the lesson or been made a little stronger some other way -- although who am I to say?? ♾️ Related: A Reminder to Take a Walk and Breathe Reply by email