A year on from the worst week of my life - here’s what I’ve learned

While I’m sure the events of last March onwards have been hell on earth for everyone in some way, shape or form, for better or worse, I feel like I was given an early insight into what 2020 was going to be like, as by mid-February my life had already taken a turn or two that had left me shell-shocked and (proverbially) scratching my head.

I’ve already touched on this once or twice in previous pieces, but the week following Valentine’s Day last year was undoubtedly one of the worst of my life in that I had to negotiate a break-up and being fired within the space of three or four days. Although I can relay this information with a rueful laugh now, and with the “oh, it could only happen to me!” energy I usually reserve for the story of when I got knocked over on a zebra crossing, let me tell you, it was rough. And I know that worse things happen; I’m aware nobody died that week, for instance, whereas death has sadly visited millions in an oft-untimely manner over the last year or so. I myself have lost more loved ones than I care to count at this point, and it is hard to overstate the way these losses shape you as a person, often irrevocably.

But that week last February was different. It was a multi-pronged attack on my self-esteem the like of which I have never experienced before, at least not in my adult life. I’m not going to talk too much about the relationship element (mostly because I don’t want to, but also because that’s not what this site is about) however, by the end of Wednesday the 19th, after I’d been summoned to a rented office in Newcastle city centre by two of my superiors and told that it was “just going to have to be a parting of ways”, as though the decision were somehow mutual, I was done. I’d never felt so expendable. What was I for? What was the point of me? What was I doing wrong? I cried myself hoarse and fell asleep, fully clothed, on the living room sofa, waking with a start every now and then to the image of my line manager’s frowning face or the sound of my HR manager urging me “not to ruminate on it”, as if that were even possible.

A year on from that dreadful day, and that generally hideous week, I am pleased to confirm that I am still in one piece and — despite last year being one of the worst on record and one which left practically no-one unscathed — I am, at the time of writing at least, feeling more positive than I have in a while. And so I write this piece not to rehash the gory details of what happened, but to tell you what I’ve learned over the year since. I’ve broken this down into twelve key lessons (one for each month, if you like).

1. Not everything runs on logic.
   For weeks if not months after I was fired, I agonised over the discrepancies between what they’d said to me as an employee in earnest and what they said to me in that rented office that day, as well as chewing over the seeming inconsistencies in the company as a whole. However I sliced it, there didn’t seem to be much logic. But once I stopped trying to apply logic to what happened, I was able to let go of the experience and allow it to be just that — an experience.
   

2. Just because something happens to you, doesn’t mean it’s about you.
   Although it was hard not to take these setbacks personally, over time it became clear that neither was really about me. This was especially true in the case of the job, where there were likely all sorts of budget-related considerations and whatnot that I wasn’t privy to. For whatever reason, I was just the one who had to go.
   

3. Try to refrain from punching the people telling you that everything happens for a reason.
   This isn’t my favourite phrase, and hearing it in the immediate aftermath of the double whammy of a break-up and being fired certainly wasn’t my favourite thing, but more often than not I understood that the person saying it was only trying to help, and trying to offer an alternative perspective. It may have taken months for any reasons to become clear, and it certainly wasn’t an easy journey (especially as the COVID-19 pandemic swooped in shortly thereafter) but, ultimately, these people were right. Which is why I didn’t punch any of them.
   

4. Someone else has felt like this before.
   Although I struggled to find anyone who had experienced a break-up and a firing in such swift succession — except for that poor guy on Friends who is dumped by Phoebe and fired by Monica at the exact same time, and even then, he is a fictional character — I found that reading books and articles and listening to podcasts created by people who had been in similar positions, particularly on the job front, was enormously comforting. (Also, the old ambush-with-the-HR-person is apparently a lot more common than I thought.)
   

5. It is crucial to cultivate a life for yourself outside of your job, and outside of your relationship.
   I have so much to say around this point but, in the interest of time, I will try to keep it brief. When my boyfriend and I broke up on the Saturday of that week, my first instinct was to throw myself into work; then, on Wednesday, when I was released from my job, I suddenly had nothing else to throw myself into. I had hobbies, sure, but they were mostly solitary and cerebral. Although COVID-19 made doing so more challenging, 2020 taught me the importance of living a well-rounded life wherein you are not defined by your job title or your relationship status, which brings me onto my next point…
   

6. Your comfort zone is not what you think it is.
   By being as “unprecedented” as it was, and forcing me to sit in such discomfort a lot of the time, 2020 led me to re-evaluate what my comfort zone is. Surfing, for example, is something that would have been way out of my comfort zone in any other year but, because everything felt so upside-down anyway, I just decided to lean into it. And I’m glad I did, as I’ve finally found a sport I truly enjoy, and a crew of like-minded women to share the journey with. That’s something no-one (well, except maybe a life-changing injury) can take away from me.
   

7. However, it’s OK if online dating isn’t for you.
   In aggressively pushing myself out of my comfort zone, I also ended up dabbling in online dating for the first time. But, you know what? It isn’t for me. It wasn’t a disaster by any means, and I realise it’s the norm nowadays, but I’m just not wired for it — my brain can’t play the game the way you’re supposed to. Fortunately I’m happy enough alone.
   

8. There’s not a great deal you can do if your face doesn’t fit somewhere.
   I didn’t have a hard time fitting in at school — in fact, I got on with pretty much everyone — but for some reason, as an adult in “the world of work”, my success rate has varied. I’m not sure why this is, and I could drive myself crazy trying to figure it out, but I think I’m past that now. As well-known Silicon Valley CEO coach Kim Scott writes in her book Radical Candor, “if neither the culture nor the individual can change, it’s best to part ways. You generally can’t fix a cultural-fit issue.”
   

9. Maybe you’re not a one-job person anyway.
   Ever since I was young, I’ve struggled to picture myself in a straightforward, 9-to-5 job. Again, I have no idea why this is, and I have to acknowledge a number of privileges that allow me to think this way, but the idea always seemed somewhat claustrophobic to me. And, if anything, after what happened last February and in light of the subsequent situation regarding COVID-19, I am now less convinced I am a one-job person than ever before. It could be that I took my reading of Emma Gannon’s The Multi-Hyphen Method a bit too literally but, going forward, I think a so-called portfolio career could be a much better fit for me.
   

10. You’re more resilient than you think.
    Although I didn’t think I needed another test of character, especially not after a catastrophe-filled 2018 and a challenging yet fortunately fruitful 2019, that week last February and the weeks of turmoil and inertia that followed served to remind me just how resilient I am, and that I have indeed survived worse (just never all at once!) “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is another phrase I don’t particularly care for, but, given that I can’t allow myself to believe the opposite, I suppose I have to agree.
    

11. Losing a job is traumatic.
    Because I’ve lost so many loved ones over the course of my life, starting with the loss of my mother when I was fifteen, I always assumed that job loss would be a comparatively trifling matter — after all, there were always other jobs, weren’t there? Oh how wrong I was. If you’ve been there before, I doubt I need to tell you, but I wouldn’t wish the experience on my worst enemy…if indeed I had one.
    

12. Never allow anyone to make you question your worth again.
    In matters both personal and professional, 2020 was the year that my self-worth hit rock bottom. Some of this stemmed from the relationship breakdown, still more of it from the manner in which I was dismissed from my job, and even the way I was spoken to in an interim job over the summer contributed somewhat. But while the younger me would have taken this, and seen it as an example of “paying my dues”, the older me says nope, my dues are paid — if anyone makes me question my worth, or worse still, my abilities, ever again, I will simply walk away.
    
    And I won’t look back.

This piece was originally published on alisonlaurabell.com in 2021.