Leap of Faith or Pushed Off a Cliff?

On December 6, I learned my job was eliminated and I wouldn’t be able to stay at Marriott. For 24 hours, I sat in my house, alternating between staring at the wall and ugly crying. I couldn’t speak without bursting into messy sobs.

During those 24 hours, I almost felt outside myself - why was I having such a strong reaction? I’d known for weeks that this was likely, and had been preparing for this outcome. I wasn’t overly worried about paying my mortgage or feeding my kids. I had a large network and people who supported and loved me. I’d had an outsized emotional reaction like this only three previous times in my life - when my best friend died at 23, when COVID closed the schools, and when I was diagnosed with cancer. This situation didn’t even come close.

So why? As my brain cycled through the past few days and then back and back, all the way to when my friends laughed at me in 6th grade, I realized my reaction was actually a deep feeling of rejection. My brain told me I was being cast out of the tribe, out of the cave and into the prairie. I had lost the protection of the tribal chief and was on my own to fend off the lions. I was hijacked by the feelings of rejection and fear.

Naming the feeling and the reaction - and giving myself permission to feel my feelings - helped to create a separation and allowed me back into my rational mind. Yes, my life was going to radically change: I would no longer have the safety net of someone telling me what to do and how to do it, and the coworkers who supported me. But with the change comes opportunity: new work to explore, people to meet, chances to challenge myself and learn something new.

The past few weeks have been a rollercoaster of feelings that has left me honestly exhausted. And ultimately, I’m ending the year with a feeling of excitement and anticipation for what comes next. These last few weeks have certainly felt like a push off a cliff, but now I have the chance to fly. (Cheesy and also an unexpected callback to my college admissions essay… perhaps that will be a later post!)