Well, without even trying I’ve taken the first step to living a nomadic life. On Friday, my boss set up a call with me—and as soon as an HR person joined the call I knew…I was being laid off.
Being in the tech industry for over 20 years, it’s pretty commonplace so I was very prepared for it. More than anything, the weirdest piece was being told it was “effective immediately”. No hand over, no nothing. The next few hours were filled with calls and text from other coworkers who had also been impacted.
So, what’s next on the plan? First off, de-stress. The job has been mentally tough on me for the last several years. I have my personal goals for this year which include being focused on working out, meditating, and studying Spanish.
While those are the day to day pieces, the long-term plan is that I’m the one who will start getting things ready so that in a year or so Mr Snacks and I can do our international travels. Somehow, it seems pretty simple on the surface—but realizing that I’ll be the one downsizing all of our stuff so we can sell the house and live out of a suitcase seems intimidating. Especially when you consider every house move we have done starts with a super-enthused me, and ends 6 hours before the move with me crying and throwing things into boxes haphazardly.
For this week, I’m going to focus on keeping myself busy with all the things that usually consume my weekends–grocery store on a Monday at 9am, how delightful!—try to get a rhythm down pat and just get used to this new life. In the next week or so, I’ll start to think through all of the things I need to consider over the next months like getting quotes on storage places, finding a property manager for renting out our condo, sorting out insurance, etc. The list is long, so there will be plenty to keep me busy!