Getting Laid-Off
May 15, 2025 started off like any other day. I woke up, and felt the overwhelming dread of existing. I decided to work from home, and thank fuck I did. I had a one-on-one meeting scheduled with my boss at 2:30pm, but the invite had no agenda. I thought it was odd, as she usually had SOMETHING written in the meeting invite, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. It was when I joined the agenda-less meeting, and was greeted by my boss and a stranger from HR that I knew it was happening.
My stomach dropped. I just knew. But my ever-hopeful self persevered and greeted them both warmly. Big mistake. Huge. Not really, it was fine as far as being canned goes. It wasn’t me, it was department-wide lay-off, blah, blah. I was given two weeks notice, and a severance lump sum. The whole meeting was surreal and ended with me in tears, trying to get off the call as quickly and professionally as possible. They gave me the rest of the day off (how generous), and I stumbled into the living room to inform my husband that I’d just lost my job.
We both took the following day off (Friday), and by 11am the idea of moving to my husband’s small hometown had wormed its way into my brain. Our lease was up, there was only two weeks of school left for the kids, and my husband hadn’t exactly been happy at his job either. By 6pm, we were at 75% sure we were doing it.
Saturday I went through my closet and told myself that even if we didn’t move, I needed to get rid of a bunch of clothes (and put together interview outfits). I also just needed to be doing something with my hands. By Sunday, we had officially decided and told our kids about the move. THAT was emotional and awful.
Side note: This is not a mommy-blog. I have kids. I cherish them more than anything else in the universe, but they deserve privacy and can overshare on the internet when their time comes. That’s not for me to do. But they’re obviously a huge part of my life so I don’t want to make it seem like I don’t have kids. Figuring out what I share as I go, I guess.
Anyways. We told Josh’s mom, and she was elated. There was no turning back now.
Things moved extremely quickly and before I knew it, it was my last day of work. An awful day, by the way. That ended with two managers standing over me, and a group, nay, a crowd of people, standing around, listening in to me explaining how to create security badges. Which was the only thing they thought I did. Imagine the egg on their face when 6 days later, they called me with what I assume was a question about office operations and I did not answer. No voicemail was left. Six. Days. And they needed me. But sure— I’ll show you how to print a fuckin’ badge.
Now we’re 4 days away from loading up the UHaul and heading to South East Kansas. Google says it’s a 17 hour drive. Josh’s little brothers are flying out to Phoenix on Saturday afternoon, we’re staying at a pet-friendly hotel with the cats, and hitting the road early Sunday morning. I hope that between the 4 adults driving, we’ll get there within 20-22 hours.
