The Job I lost… And the 8 Years I Lost After It…

I used to have a great job. I worked for the same company for 24 years, I liked it, I was good at it, the pay check was good.

And then I got fired.

Whatever led up to that or why isn’t something I can discuss, but I can summarise one part of it in one very simple sentence, because apparently the people in the back still haven’t gotten the message:

I had done nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing.

And strangely enough, that became one of the hardest parts of the whole thing. Because when someone who has worked for the same company for 24 years suddenly disappears, people naturally wonder what happened.

What did she do?

Only two of my colleagues cared enough to reach out afterwards to ask what had happened, and that was a huge disappointment in itself. It was as if I had never existed in their lives at all. However, when colleagues are wondering, that’s one thing, even though that one hits hard as well. But, when your own family asks you what you did, that’s something else entirely. And when you’re already in some kind of shock yourself and can’t properly explain what happened, you don’t exactly have the non-emotional PowerPoint presentation ready in hand. Me being the organisation geek didn’t even know how to start one…

So I didn’t explain. I withdrew.

And apparently I stayed withdrawn for the better part of eight years.

When your job becomes who you are

I’d been at that company since I was 21. It was basically my first real job. I started on the floor in the tax-free shop and worked my way up into management. By the end, I knew that ship inside and out. It wasn’t just where I worked. In a strange way, it was where I grew up. It was home.

And I had a complicated relationship with that job. With my home.

I didn’t always love the workplace, but I loved my work. I loved my tasks. At least at the last position I had. Give me a computer, a complicated problem and something that needed organising and I was happy. Add more guest service or personnel issues and I would probably be growling in frustration, but that’s another story.

The problem was that by the last 10 (!) years of my employment, I was exhausted. Not ooh, I need a weekend exhausted. I had been flirting hard with burnout for years and eventually we’d progressed to a full-blown toxic relationship. And damn, I’m so good at those…

I took on too much. I trusted nobody else to do things properly. I noticed everything everyone else did wrong while becoming increasingly incapable of seeing what the stress was doing to me.

I was angry. Irritated. Arrogant at times, probably. Most definitely, not always a particularly pleasant colleague.

Looking back, I can see someone screaming for help without actually knowing how to ask for it. At the time, I couldn’t see any of that.

And then I got fired.

There is a strange contradiction here that has taken me years to understand:

Losing that job broke me. But leaving it most likely saved my life.

I genuinely don’t know what would have happened to me if I had continued living like that for another five or ten years. Something had to stop. It stopped. Just not in a way I was remotely prepared for.

I thought I was angry. I wasn’t.

This is the part I didn’t understand for a very long time. I thought I was angry about losing my job. And, sure, I was angry. But underneath the anger was something much bigger.

I’d lost the place where I’d spent my entire adult life. I’d lost my routine, my income, my colleagues and friends, my professional identity and the thing I’d been really fracking good at. My work had become such a large part of my personality that when it disappeared, I wasn’t entirely sure what remained. Or who.

Who tf was I without it?

Apparently my solution was not to investigate that particular question. My solution was to run away to Mexico for six months, pretending to be fine. I had been planning the trip for a few months before the firing squad arrived, and, to be fair, it is an extremely on-brand response. Pondering at home just doesn’t have the same style to it, now does it?

But I was living in a bubble, an I-don’t-care-about-anything-bubble. I was numb. I don’t think I’d even properly understood that what had happened was real. And the most important part: I didn’t ask anyone for help. Of course I didn’t. Why would I? I was fine…

I can talk about difficult things afterwards. Analyse them. Pick them apart. Write 4,000 words about them on the internet apparently. Absolutely not a problem.

While they’re actually happening?

Hermit mode.

Shut the door. Pull up the drawbridge. Release the crocodiles.

No, thank you, Mr Sir. Armour’s on! I’ll handle this myself!

Usually I do, and every time with varying results. This one took eight fracking years. Maybe it would have been faster had I not been dealing with the Narc stuff simultaneously, and had I gotten some professional help (you know… a therapist). But well, I always have been a sucker for learning the hard way.

And then life got very expensive

For roughly two years after losing my job, I barely worked. I had some freelance translation work for a while, but then Covid arrived and that disappeared too. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, or that I didn’t understand that I had to work, I just… couldn’t care less. Meanwhile, bills have this extremely annoying habit of continuing to arrive even when you’re having an existential crisis.

I’d previously had a good salary. I’d taken out loans based on the assumption that I would continue having a good salary. Suddenly I didn’t.

Eventually there were odd jobs. Jobs that didn’t pay enough. Credit cards filling the gaps. Debt paying for life while life stubbornly refused to sort itself out.

And the deeper the financial hole became, the harder everything else became too.

Eventually I found my way back to ships and started working in Norway. But I never really found my way back to myself. That’s the distinction I understand now. Because for years I thought my problem was practical.

I need a better job.

I need more money.

I need to pay off the credit cards & sort out the debt.

I need to work harder.

I need to get my shit together.

All true. But there was something underneath all of it that I hadn’t dealt with. Something that made me indifferent to everything in my life.

Eight years later, I finally see it

This year, something finally clicked. I realised that I hadn’t spent eight years being lazy, unmotivated or incapable of sorting my life out. I’d spent eight years trying to keep my head above water without understanding why I was drowning.

Because when I thought there was nothing holding me down, there had in fact been too many things drowning me, one after another, for too many years. Relationships. Miscarriage. Burnout. Losing my job. Losing my identity. Financial stress. Starting over. Trying again. Getting knocked sideways again. And then pushed over again.

And every single time something hurt, I did what I have always done.

Put it away.

Keep moving.

Deal with it later.

Well. Apparently Later has arrived. And she’s brought luggage. And not that cute Hello Kitty back pack either.

I realised I’ve spent entire chunks of my life in some kind of freeze mode. Wanting desperately to change things while simultaneously feeling completely incapable of moving. That’s a very strange place to exist. Especially when, somewhere underneath it all, you know you’re a badass.

I know I’m capable. I mean, come on!

I know I can learn new things. Like, really easily.

I know I can do the work. Also, without breaking a sweat.

I know I’m a Boss Babe! I know that!

And yet I’ve watched myself put tiny obstacles in front of every possibility thrown in my way.

I can’t apply for that job. I’m not good enough. I have no idea how to do that.

Well, no shit, Sherlock. Isn’t that what learning is for?

So, the main reason for my self-sabotaging was something I only understood just a few months ago: I had completely lost faith in myself, in my own abilities. Although I lost myself years before I was fired, my work had been the one place where I felt confident in myself, where I knew I had control, so losing it was the final push over the edge I didn’t need, and I fell straight into the bushes of freeze mode and utter uselessness.

And this is where I have been comfortably hiding ever since, hoping that no one would notice me.

Just recently I started hearing this new quieter voice, whispering to me, pushing me on and finally making me brave enough to take that one first step in the right direction. Or perhaps the voice isn’t new. Perhaps I can just finally hear her. Apparently , two years of solitude can do that to you…

So… why revive the blog?

This is where all of this connects to Pondering Padawan. For a long time, I thought I needed to get my life sorted out before I could come back here.

Fix the finances.

Fix the career.

Fix myself.

Become some shiny After picture and then return with a lovely inspirational story about How I Turned My Life Around in 12 easy steps. Write great stories.

Yeah. That’s not happening.

Because there is no such tale, and there are no such easy steps. But most importantly, because I’m not writing this from the other side. I’m writing it from within chaos, The Eye of the Storm, if you will. At this very moment, writing this it’s all so quiet I could almost be fooled I’m OK. But if I really listen, I hear it, I see it.

My finances are still a mess. My career is still a question mark. Me? Well, never mind, let’s just not get into that right now… Let’s just say that there are things I need to rebuild that frankly scare the crap out of me, but writing is healing.

And something has changed, too.

For the first time in forever, I feel like I’m moving again. Not quickly. Not elegantly. Possibly imaginary on some days. But moving nonetheless. And perhaps that’s what restarting actually looks like.

Not burning your old life to the ground and emerging three weeks later with a new career, perfect morning routine and suspiciously beige living room. Yep, still trying to get rid of that beige, white Nordic bland style Mr Narc himself introduced into my life. It’s a process, ladies. I will get there.

But, maybe sometimes starting over is simply understanding what happened to you. Seeing the patterns and actually connecting the dots. Realising why you’ve been standing still. And for the first time in a long time hearing that tiny voice inside you:

Okay. I see it now. Let’s try again.

So that’s what I need to do. Try again. And if I fail again? Try, try and try, try again…

And this blog is coming with me. Are you?