Moving on, is a simple thing, what it leaves behind is hard.

— Dave Mustaine

“This is your thirty-day notice.” Everything slipped into slow motion. I felt the blood drain from my face.“It’s a money-saving decision.” My boss looked away and twirled his pencil. “By combining departments we can save on management costs.” I wondered what I had done wrong, if I had unknowingly crossed an invisible line that pushed me out of existence. “It’s nothing personal,” he said.

It felt very personal. We sat in silence. I could feel his relief when I finally stood to leave.

“What are you going to do?”

I had no idea.

My husband was sympathetic. Words caught in my throat and came out in a near whisper. No matter how hard I tried, I could not bring myself to speak of it to anyone else. Not my mother or my sister, not my adult children. The hurt was too deep. Not even the benefit of a pink slip; just a casual remark on a Friday afternoon that ended my career.

My devotional reading that morning had been Psalm 37:25 (NIV). “I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.” I felt forsaken in spite of the Psalm. I stayed indoors the entire weekend, unable to eat or talk with anyone.

On Monday, the facility buzzed with the news. Swirling emotions exhausted me and I counted the hours until I could punch out and go home. Then I counted the remaining days until I could leave forever, marking my desk calendar with a pencil. It seemed impossible I could survive twenty working days, the embarrassment and shame, the rumors.

Without future projects on my desk, there was little to do.