The Space Between Stories
It started with a layoff.
Well—to be fair—it started long before that. But the layoff was the jolt that turned a slow burn into a bonfire. Over the past couple of years, I've been intentionally stepping off the track. The income dropped. The job titles got less impressive. And those cocktail party conversations? A masterclass in awkward pauses. "So, what do you do?" Cue internal spiral.
But here's the thing: I wasn't failing. I was reclaiming.
I stopped wanting to climb the ladder. I was okay with the salary drops because I had more peace of mind. I realized that the more money I made, the more miserable I was. Letting go of the chase felt like breathing for the first time in years.
I remember the moment I got the call. It was a Friday afternoon. They waited to call me at the end of the day to let me know I was laid off. I was finishing off my last email. My heart pounded like I'd just missed a step on the stairs, even though part of me knew it was coming. After I hung up, I sat in silence for a long time. And then I exhaled—this long, shaky breath I didn’t know I’d been holding for months.
That said, getting laid off less than a month ago still hit hard. I won’t pretend otherwise. It feels a bit like floating in space without a tether—trying to smile and say, "I'm just exploring right now," while quietly wondering what comes next.
The truth is, I had been so tightly wound around external definitions of success—salary, status, structure—that when those started to fall away, I didn't know who I was without them. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, I began to notice something unexpected blooming in all that space: freedom.
Freedom to pause. To question. To say no. To remember what I actually cared about before the LinkedIn headlines and ladder climbing. The hardest part wasn't making the decision to step back. It was living in the blank space after—where you're no longer who you were, but not yet who you're becoming.
That in-between is brutal. It's where most people hit eject. The uncertainty is itchy. It's easier to run back to the thing you left than to sit still and wait for the next true thing to emerge.
But if you can stay there—if you can resist the urge to fill the silence with the next "safe" thing—something starts to shift. You begin to hear your own thoughts again. You start choosing from desire instead of fear. You build something new, not because you're supposed to, but because it feels right.
That's where I am. Right here, in the murky middle. Still a little shaky. Still squinting toward the future. But more myself than I've been in a long time.
These days, I walk every evening, then follow it with Pilates and stretching. Small rituals, but they quiet my mind. They remind me that my well-being matters, even now—especially now. I'm prioritizing things I never made time for before.
I don’t have a five-year plan. But I’ve started scribbling ideas again. Messy ones. Honest ones. And for now, that feels like enough.
So if you’re there too—staring into the unknown, wondering if the ground will catch you—maybe this is the sign you didn’t know you needed. You’re not lost. You’re just in between.
And that’s not failure. That’s the beginning of becoming.
xoxo,
Carmen