To Float at Sea

I’m thirty years old. 

I’m single,

Live with my mom,

and I’m unemployed.

This is far from how I pictured my life going. In fact, sometime around the age of thirteen I mapped out my entire life and my thirties did not include a hard restart. Yet here I am. I’ve opened the door to a new decade and found tech layoffs in the form of an email at seven in the morning.

We have been reviewing our operational structure to best position our teams for long-term growth. As a result of this review, we have made the difficult decision to close your regional office, effective today. Unfortunately, this means your role has been impacted.

I texted the one friend I had made at work and asked her if she received the same email, was this a spam attempt to make me click a random link. She confirmed it was sent out to everyone. I finally understood what it meant when people said they had the rug pulled out from under them. I didn’t see this coming. I didn’t plan for this. I always have a plan.

I was instantly logged out of all accounts and my laptop was locked remotely. I starred blankly at the room for a while, feeling dumbfounded and fooled. I spent the day pacing back and forth through the apartment, aimlessly, thinking about how I had just finished submitting my Mid-Year Performance review and was discussing promotions, new projects, and new responsibilities with my manager a week ago. I thought about the past five years, how I moved to this city with the promise of career growth that I didn’t see manifesting in my hometown. I thought about how much I hated my job but how I stayed for longer than I should have. How I made the decision to try to grow here even if it’s nowhere near where I wanted to be. I thought about how the years have passed me by and I had nothing to show for it.

I had planned a trip a few months back with some friends. If I had known I was to be laid off I’d have been more frugal with my finances. The trip was non-refundable so I was left with the somewhat favorable choice of licking my wounds on a tropical beach. Maybe I’d get sh*t faced and cry by the shoreline or maybe I’ll come back home with a plan I'd discover by sitting out in nature.

I had no idea how much a group of thirty year old women could reference work until I found my self an outsider in a multitude of conversations. I could no longer relate to the struggles I had just lived through, I felt like an imposter chiming in about work when I had none of my own. I spent a lot of time in my head and in the water, letting the waves roll past me wondering how deep I could get before the current would take me. 

This is unlike me, I don’t swim out to sea. I’m the one that stands where the waves crash, the one who notices the flag color to determine if we should do beach or pool. I’m the girl that has too many limits, the girl who internally screams at herself to go for it while she stands frozen in her comfort zone. The girl who risks nothing. So how did I find myself here, chin touching the water on my tiptoes wondering how far was too far. 

The water was cold where I stood, I was deep enough that my feet where invisible under the waves of blue that ran through my legs. I felt like I was being held by the sea, like it was calling me in deeper until my feet float up to the top and I become weightless against the water. I closed my eyes and leaned back, ready for the waves to carry me into a blissful embrace. Instead, I was met with the salty rinse of a wave as it smacked into my face. An unsolicited amount of water entered through my nose, burning the base of my throat as the salt collided with my delicate ecosystem.

Looking back at it, I believe the sea drew me closer to it to smack me into reality, it could never reach me from the shoreline. Perhaps that’s why people tell you to step out of your comfort zone. I always thought they were full of sh*t, but maybe they too were once lost and found themselves deep in water. I came back from my trip carrying the same sense of curiosity I had encountered in the water; how far was too far?

Over the coming days I tried looking for jobs, but the idea of starting at zero again was debilitating. I was back at square one in a career path I never meant to be in. I dedicated my time, energy, and some of my will to live to a company, that, without warning, shut the door in my face with a quick email that I’m sure was AI generated. 

I stepped out of my comfort zone and looked into pursuing other options, what if I worked towards something other than the job I knew I had the experience to do. I tried my hand at art, writing, and looked into signing up for some certificate programs, but I felt distracted and lost. The way I see it, I had no limitations anymore. I had my savings; I could travel the world, start a business, create a whole new career path for myself. The issue I was facing was that I had no idea what I wanted. I spent years overworking at a meaningless job. I believe somewhere in the mundane stillness of my monotonous career I lost a piece of myself. 

I sit on the porch a lot now. I look at the leaves on the trees, the birds, and insects flying by, and I think about life a lot. I struggle to breathe when I realize how much time I have spent doing things I don’t want to do, like I’m a phone running out of battery. I’m at around seventy percent if I live to be a hundred. Seventy percent feels like a lot of time, certainly more than thirty. Why do I feel like I need to have things figured out by now? If I compare my life to a battery, I’m not even worried about finding a charger at this stage. 

If all the world’s a stage what where the odds anyone was actually looking at me? What was the rush to being established? If I let go of the idea that I’m supposed to be anywhere but here, would I still feel lost? If I let go of these imaginary timelines I placed on my life, would it be easier to find my place? If I keep stepping further into the water, will I find that one day I can float?

I made a list of everything I could be. I live like an artist on Monday and I paint the world as I see fit, leaving my mistakes visible on the canvas. On Tuesday I am a writer and I am meticulous about the coffee I craft myself in the morning. By Wednesday I am a scholar and I spend my day learning something new at the library. Thursday finds me as a carefree potter at the studio down the road crafting bowls and plates. Friday I am a traveler driving towards a new city to discover spaces I’d never seen before. 

I don’t know what’s next for me, which way will call me home. The one thing I do know now is there is no reason to rush to find out. Tomorrow will come as quickly as tomorrow comes. So I’m letting go of this idea that I’m falling behind, that I’m somehow running late to my own life.

I'm letting go. And maybe I'll start to float.