I don’t know if anything prepares you for a sudden or unexpected job loss. In the days after I found out I was no longer employed with the organization I’d been a manager at for six months, I spent a lot of time searching for warning signs.

Maybe I shouldn’t have told my boss I didn’t know enough about the material someone else had asked me to gather to make an educated decision on what to add and what to exclude.

Perhaps I should have been more outgoing and involved, but I’d been too friendly with my colleagues before and found it makes professionalism tough to balance.

And maybe, just maybe – and even probably – there was nothing I could have said or done or spotted that would have clued me in or prevented it from happening.

At the end of the day, despite the disappointment, I know a business decision needed to be made and it was. Although I was doing good work, I simply don’t have the necessary technical background that no one truly realized was a requirement for the role.

I also know enough to know that this happens in new roles, sometimes, though it doesn’t make it suck any less.

Like barreling up the road to a sudden dead end, the news I was starkly unemployed at 9:51am on Tuesday morning made my stomach flip upside down. There were many, many tears. Five years ago, I was in a similar position. Like then, I know I’ll land on my feet again – perhaps not where I imagined, but where I’m meant to be.

Losing your job is an awful experience. Emotional. Stressful. Unsettling. It turns your life upside down.

It’s been four weeks since I lost my job and I’d be lying if I said I immediately bounced back. It took a few days. I cried myself to sleep a few times or woke up in the middle of the night, worrying about what’s next. But I do believe that everything happens for a reason and that I am exactly where I’m meant to be right now, even if I can’t clearly see where I’m going next.