Writing through a job loss
It is not only the money. It is being asked what you do, and not knowing what to say. Write before the story hardens.
The first week feels like a holiday you did not book. The second week is quieter. By the fourth, you have started avoiding the neighbours, because there is a question they will ask and you have not settled on an answer.
Losing work takes more than income. It takes the structure of the day, the people you saw without arranging to, and — this is the one nobody warns you about — a sentence you had been using to describe yourself.
Write down what actually happened, once
Sit down and write the sequence of events. Plainly, in order, including the parts that do not flatter you.
You will find it is shorter than you expect. The version that has been in your head is enormous, and includes several arguments you have had with people who are not present.
The written version is a thing that happened over a few weeks. That is not nothing, but it is finite — and once it is on the page, you stop having to rehearse it.
The story in your head has been growing. The story on paper is a certain size.
Separate the loss from the verdict
Notice how often the entry drifts from what happened into what it means about me. They came for the team, not me — but if I had been better they would have kept me. Everyone got the same email — but nobody else seems this shaken.
That drift is the actual damage. Redundancy is a business event; shame is what you add. On the page you can see the seam, and write each part separately. What was decided about the company. What you decided about yourself.
They are not the same list.
Keep a record of the days, not just the search
Applications, rejections, the recruiter who stopped replying — keeping track of these is practical.
But also write down what the days are like. That you were productive for two hours and then lost the afternoon. That you were relieved on Monday morning, and did not expect that. That an old colleague called and it helped more than the applications did.
Months later, this is what tells you what kind of work you should actually be looking for. Your calendar knows what you applied to. Only your journal knows what the days felt like.
When people ask what you do
Write the honest answer before you need the social one.
The honest answer might be: I do not know yet, and that frightens me. Or: I was a manager for eleven years and I am not sure I liked it. You are not going to say that at a wedding, but knowing it is what stops the small talk from knocking you over.
What you might find
A lot of people, reading back six months later, notice something uncomfortable: relief. Not about the money, but about the meetings, the commute, the person who made Sunday evenings bad.
That does not appear if you only record the job search. It appears in the ordinary entries, where you were not trying to draw conclusions.
Which is usually where the useful things are.
