“The state or feeling of grief when deprived of someone or something of value.”

We’ve lost grandparents, friends, parents, jobs, and possibly interest in certain parts of our lives.

Each loss feels different – sometimes loss is painful because you won’t get to hear someone laugh again; maybe the loss is such a sudden or unexpected thing that the shock disrupts your life for a bit; some things we lose feel like a violation of sorts, and some loss leaves you asking, “what the heck just happened?” Each type of loss brings with it, its own period of processing.

I’ve lost all my grandparents. I’ve lost friends to death. I lost my step-dad. I’ve reduced my activity in skateboarding (wasn’t that good anyway). I don’t snowboard as much because the traffic sucks, and recently I lost a job that I was really good at. I never said that (I was really good at my job) when I had the role – I always let my work and its effects speak for itself, but I’ve decided that I will own that I was in fact great at what I did for nearly two decades. 

I have gone through different emotions related to this recent loss. This abrupt ending shocked me, and recently I have decided to acknowledge that it was a loss and that I needed to process it as such. 

In the organization that I was a part of, people with titles like mine are offered a 12 week sabbatical every seven years on top of the generous, annual time off. A little over a year ago, I was made aware that I was eligible for this sabbatical. After much deliberation, I decided to take what was being offered. It made total sense – Traci is off in the summers now, it was Ashers last summer before leaving for college, and Amery was at home in between all the cheer practice. It made total sense to take this time away to mentally refresh, read, contemplate my future professionally, travel, ride my bike, go to the beach for two weeks, surf a little, body surf a lot, and enjoy our summer together. In preparation I planned who would help cover my responsibilities at work for the 12 weeks, this included staff mates and my volunteer team of around 100 people. It took weeks for me to document all of the things I did daily/weekly/monthly so that they would be covered well in my absence. Many of the things I did regularly were never written down on a job description, if I saw something that needed attention, I took care of it. 

The first couple of weeks included a few phone calls from volunteers but nothing major. After those first two weeks or so, it was smooth sailing. I didn’t stress about how my team took care of things or responded to unplanned changes, I knew they would shine. That is what they did – they loved volunteering and all did so with a smile. 

I fell in love with getting to ride bikes with my friends on Sunday mornings, stopping for a coffee on those Sunday rides, going for a ride in the mountains, and being able to slow down for a bit. It was a great summer.

When I returned to work, I was greeted with excitement from staff and volunteers, and of course some special decorations in my office of packing tape and bubble wrap (I would expect nothing less). I was getting back into the rhythms of the days in the office, joking with coworkers, and seeing and thanking my volunteer team that made my summer possible. It was great to have been away, but it was fun coming back as well. The total surprise came when I was one week back from this 12 week time that encouraged me to refresh both personally and professionally. I was informed that my role was being eliminated because giving was down, even though the conversations all year around this topic were, “giving is down but so are expenses”. In the layoff stories I’d heard similar to mine, there was a plan to phase the person out in order to transfer knowledge. But this felt different, “today’s your last day, we need your keys and computer…”

The rug had been ripped out from under me… the loss occurred. 

I’ve had a number of people comment when I see them around town, “I haven’t seen you in forever, I thought you just left.” To be clear, “just leaving” is NOT who I am, nor is it anything I’ve done before. 

Over the next few months, I dealt with the thoughts of, “what just happened, this can’t be real,” and my self confidence had been obliterated. It was hard to comprehend and I would wake up in the middle of the night with all sorts of feelings. Those middle-of-the-night moments were some of the hardest to feel.

I know that organizations sometimes make decisions that aren’t as well planned as you’d hope.

In processing this as a loss, I began to ask myself why I feel the way I do. I’ve decided the thing I miss the most are the relationships that I developed with my volunteer team who had multiple leaders from the staff through the years before me. They welcomed me in, got to know me, and we worked together weekly and THEY made THE thing happen. In the meeting when the rug was ripped out from under me, I wasn’t offered the chance for a farewell or even to come one last weekend and say goodbye to my teams, although I was told, “you can come back as a volunteer”–so there’s that. I still see my volunteers randomly around town and still get weekly text messages from some of them asking how I’m doing, telling me that they miss me, and still expressing the shock of when they heard the news… if they heard the news. Those relationships seem to be what I miss most about this loss – not the title I held or the money I made. Titles don’t mean anything to me really except they can influence your paycheck. 

Looking for ways to fill this void has been weird for me. I don’t have any desire to be involved in the same spaces I used to be, so I have been thinking about new ways to use the thing I’m great at in order to benefit something else. 

My job or role I held has never really been my identity. I often would ask friends if we were at a party or something to NEVER tell anyone what I did, because when someone would hear what my job was they would immediately change their language, what they wanted to talk about, or tell me about how they knew someone else once that did the same work. It just made interactions feel wonky… probably because someone with the same job that I had made them feel weird in a conversation before. 

Losing my job was an awful experience and I do not recommend it, but the title change does make talking to new people easier.