I Didn’t Lose Who I Am. I Just Lost Where I Was Standing.

This week didn’t go the way I expected.

After thirteen and a half years with the same company, I was laid off. Even writing that still feels strange, like I am describing something that happened to someone else. It was not just a job for me. It was a constant. It gave me structure, identity, and rhythm. It was where I learned how to lead, how to build, how to navigate complexity, and how to show up in spaces that demanded both precision and empathy.

Losing it did not feel like losing a role. It felt like losing a piece of the ground I had been standing on for over a decade.

There is a specific kind of silence that follows something like that. Not loud or dramatic. Quiet and heavy. The kind where your mind keeps circling the same question.

What now?

The fear that comes with that question is not just about work. It reaches into identity and stability and all the things we do not realize we have anchored ourselves to. I could feel my mind trying to rebuild certainty as quickly as possible, searching for answers that simply were not there yet.

And then another layer hit.

I started thinking about Kuma.

So much of how we have built time together has been tied to my ability to travel for work. London was not just a place I visited. It was part of a rhythm. Something that made the distance feel manageable. Predictable. I knew I could plan trips and carve out time on either side of a work week.

Losing my job did not just change my routine. It changed that rhythm.

That realization sat heavier than I expected. My mind immediately went to what that could mean. Fewer trips. More planning. Less spontaneity. More distance, not just geographically, but in how easy it is to stay connected.

It was not about anything he had done. It was the uncertainty itself. The way it quietly asks if the things that matter will hold when the structure around them changes.

For a moment, it was easy to let that spiral.

But when I slowed down enough to sit with it, something became clear.

What I have with Kuma was never built on convenience. It was supported by it. Made easier by it. But not created by it.

The connection exists in the time we choose. In the quiet moments. In simply being in the same space and letting everything slow down. Those things are not tied to a schedule. They are not dependent on a job.

What has changed is not the connection.

It is the effort required to maintain it.

And while that is uncomfortable, it is also clarifying. It shifts the question from how easy is it to see each other to how much do we choose to.

That realization did not remove the uncertainty, but it softened it.

At the same time, I needed something to ground me in the present. Something that did not require me to solve everything at once.

Ruff.

Not as an escape, but as something steady.

So instead of sitting in the spiral, I went out. I put on the hood and let myself drop into that space where the noise quiets down and the body takes over. A place where I do not need to have all the answers yet.

And something shifted.

People came up and said hi. Some recognized me, some did not. There were small conversations and shared moments on a dance floor. None of it fixed what had happened, but it grounded me.

It reminded me that I am more than what I lost.

The parts of me that teach, that connect, that show up for others, those did not disappear. If anything, they became more visible.

And over the next few days, something else began to change.

The anxiety started to ease.

Not because everything was resolved, but because I was no longer stuck in that initial shock. Ruff helped ground me long enough to take the first steps forward. To start putting things back into place. To move from reaction into action.

I have already started having conversations again. I have a couple of interviews lined up for roles within the same company, stepping back into the kind of work I was doing before I took on the international role.

There is something reassuring in that. Not just the possibility of returning, but the reminder that the experience I built still has value.

Ruff is often described as chaotic. A chaos corgi. There is playfulness there, unpredictability, a bit of mischief.

But there is also something deeper.

Resilience.

The ability to adapt when the ground shifts. To keep moving forward without needing everything to be resolved first.

Nothing about this week resolved cleanly. I do not have all the answers yet. There are still decisions to make. That question of what comes next is still there.

But I am not facing it empty.

Because if there is one thing this week made clear, it is this.

I didn’t lose who I am.

I just lost one place I was expressing it.

And the same is true for the relationships in my life.

The shape may change. The effort may increase. The path may look different. But the core of what matters is still there, waiting to be chosen again.

And that is enough to find my footing again.

Not certainty.

But choice.

— Ruff