The Call We Were Wating For

A few days after our walk, Will and I were both working while Little Bird napped. I heard Will answer his phone and knew it was “the” call – the call that would set in motion the path to our future, the call that would end the months of waiting and uncertainty, the call that would define so much. The call was not unexpected. We both knew what he was going to hear, and we’d started seriously planning for our future on the road.

Will sat at his makeshift desk (i.e., the far half of the dining room table) and professionally talked with his manager about the next steps in the process, his severance, and everything that comes with cutting ties with a company you’ve been with for nearly 10 years.

I sat in my office and cried. You never expect to overhear your spouse being laid off from a job you know he loved with a company he wanted to spend his career with. Even though we had big plans for our future, it was still hard to listen to his career come to an end. In so many ways, the call signified the end of a chapter of his life, of our life. We already saw doors opening to our future, but it can still be hard to see doors close. Not only was he moving on from a career, but we were also facing an entire paradigm shift in the way we want to live. This wasn’t a call ending a job, it was, in a sense, ending everything we knew and encouraging us to take those first steps into the unknown.