I move toward my office, noting the rows of boxes lining the walls of my living room in anticipation of our upcoming move. I’m tickled thinking about our new bigger and brighter quarters. Hard work always pays off, I think, stealing a moment to picture my kids running around in the sprawling backyard. My heart expands with joy, and a touch of fear at our new, hefty mortgage.

The clock shows 25 minutes before my impromptu Zoom meeting with the Big Boss. I thank myself for resisting the urge to keep Pinny home and add an extra layer of lip gloss in an effort to put my best face forward, literally and figuratively. As a senior manager with solid credibility, I’ve become a celebrated backbone of the business. I enjoy more respect and flexibility than most. In a recent hire-discussion, my higher-ups insisted on only interviewing in-office candidates with no flexibility outside the 9 to 5 grind. I quietly relished my rare flexibility as a perk, well-deserved.

I step into my office with poise and boot up the computer, starting my workday. My boss, Bryna, shows up on Zoom right on time. I share the latest client updates, a report on Pinny’s recovery, and a snapshot of my soon-to-be new home office.

It takes a moment before I realize that something’s wrong. The cheerful Bryna I know isn’t here for a usual catch-up. By the look on her face, I can tell she’s looking to escape, like she’d rather be an office plant than need to utter the words she’s clumsily trying to deliver.

There’s no nice way of firing a decade-long employee so suddenly. She hesitates, overexplains. The new assistant we were planning to hire, the one I recommended and interviewed, comes with more corporate appeal: young, in-office, a lower-paid newbie. Sweet young Shifra is getting my role.

The following weeks are a blur. We move house, but I drift through it. My head is heavy with Bryna’s words, a constant buzz that keeps me in a daze during the day and awake at night.

Rationally, the decision makes sense. Emotionally, I’m too entrenched in grief to understand. I cry. I despair. I watch my ego crumble along with the title that contained my identity, and the paycheck that offered me an illusion of financial control.

I grope through dark days in my sunlit home and struggle to find my footing. The emptiness in my heart echoes through the house. I avoid my smartly designed home office like the plague. How do I find joy after my job has been yanked away? Who am I, now that my career has dissolved?

Some days find me scanning job networks and polishing my long-forgotten résumé, but an unwanted shadow lurks in the background and scorns my futile attempts to reclaim my old way of life. I’m lost amid a murky, hazy darkness that fogs my vision as I desperately try to map out my next moves toward success.

When I can’t shake off the fog that has become a steady companion, I get curious about it. What about my life is so gloomy that only career achievement could brighten it up? Why does my once idealized dream of being a stay-at-home mother feel so foreign when it’s finally in my grasp? Why am I floundering for purpose on job sites when I should be feeling it within?

If I’d tasted a lick of doubt about my dedication to my career in the past, this job loss offered a hefty dose. When I try to rejuvenate myself with my usual shot of caffeine, I feel the taste of regret and hear faint whispers of truths that have tried seeping into my consciousness for so long.

At one point, I finally surrender my battle with the invisible force that’s holding me back from climbing the professional ladder, and I make a brave detour. I search for me, face myself, and lean into the truths I’ve had to mask with career success in order to quiet. It’s a tough journey inward, and I trudge along clumsily and move through the shadows ever so slowly.

It took painful months of battling the dark to learn that no career holds the spark I am searching for. Where I once hustled to fill the void, I learn to find purpose in the quiet. What I thought was stimulation I now recognize as unnecessary distraction. I make room for friendships I had neglected to invest in because being busy was simpler than mastering healthy connections.

Today, I find my spark beyond professional titles and a coveted career, and my large home echoes with easy laughter, hobbies, and busy dinner tables. I wear my titles of wife, mother, daughter, and friend with pride.

The mortgage still looms, but job listings are no longer daunting now that I’ve stopped searching for the one that holds my identity.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 977)