Opportunity | Questioning the Answers

Sometimes in life, we have experiences that transcend our full comprehension and perhaps even our ability to put into words, but they seem important, meaningful, purposeful.

I had one such experience about three years ago. It happened at the YMCA of all places, in the middle of a regular workout routine.

During the summer prior to said experience, life had taken a massive and massively unexpected turn. Although I was surrendered and feeling positive about the future, there was still a vast abyss of uncharted territory ahead. And historically I’ve not been one to embrace the unknown.

That day at the Y, as I moved from one station to the next, with OneRepublic streaming through my earbuds, something started to prick at me. I didn’t pay attention at first. Maybe it was just the lyrics. Song lyrics often reached in and touched parts of my soul in purposeful and meaningful ways that I couldn’t explain.

But this felt different.

The song continued. The workout continued. The pricking continued.

Something started to form inside of me. It’s hard to describe. It was a knowing, of sorts.

I’d become accustomed to having my mind filled at times with incessant chatter, but this was unmistakably different. It wasn’t merely an array of thoughts trying to take over. It’s as though something was speaking to me, but without words.

And it wasn’t in my head; it felt like it was deep within my soul (whatever that means).

As I said, life had taken quite the turn for me, leaving me with more questions than answers, with more uncertainty than security. In a way, I felt vulnerable, perhaps more so than I ever had before. Not in that particular moment at the Y, but in the broader season of my life.

What started to become clear in those moments during the workout was that I needed to start sharing about my life. Telling my story, if you will.

I scoffed internally. What a ridiculous notion.

Making my way to the treadmill, I hopped on just as U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” started to play.

Such a great song. Maybe the music would drown out the internal dialogue of sorts that was attempting to take place.

I picked up my pace with the chord progression of the song’s intro.

The intro is a long one, and, despite my hopes, there was no avoiding whatever the hell this thing was that was transpiring somewhere inside of me.

It persisted. The knowing. The non-existent voice.

“Just start telling your story.”

I tried to keep dismissing it, but I couldn’t. Something was building inside me. A struggle was taking place. Not a full-fledged battle, but it felt like a conflict, for sure.

My response, also without words, was clear and repeated. “I don’t want to tell my story!”

I was adamant, like a kid digging in his heels. Yet, perhaps unlike most kids, somehow I knew it was futile.

The song’s intro finally gave way to Bono’s vocals.

I wanna run / I want to hide /
I wanna tear down the walls / That hold me inside

The non-existent voice continued. “You need to do this.”

What the hell was happening?

Tears started to build, maybe because I instinctively knew that something important was happening and that refusing to go along wasn’t really a viable option. And maybe because the truth of the matter was that I was scared to tell my story.

But really? Did this actually need to be happening here and now? On the treadmill in the public of the YMCA?

I wanna reach out / And touch the flame /
Where the streets have no name

The non-existent voice spoke once more. “And you’ll be okay.”

Oh. My. God.

It’s like the words reached right into that dark and murky space consisting of a fog bank of fear and touched me with an unmistakable assurance that was so clear and powerful that I simply caved.

The tears that were brimming in the corners of my eyes spilled over and started streaming down my cheeks. I reached for the handrails to make sure I could steady myself; the last thing I needed was to collapse on the treadmill in what would appear to be some kind of emotional meltdown.

Everything was ultimately fine. I didn’t collapse. And I don’t think many – if any – people witnessed what transpired there, thankfully.

I left the YMCA that day certain that I needed to do what I didn’t want to do. I thought about it a lot. And I thought I was prepared to do it. I even started scribbling some things in a notebook that could’ve served as a starting point.

But somehow I managed to talk myself out of it. “I don’t really have anything to share.” “Maybe there are some interesting elements to what’s going on in my world, but my life certainly isn’t that unique.” “I don’t have enough to talk about.”

Plus, there was just a lot going on in my life that took a ton of emotional bandwidth.

Life went on. I didn’t actively pursue sharing about things in any kind of distinctly public fashion, but the idea never went away. I knew that what happened that day at the YMCA meant something. It happened for a reason.

Flash forward to two weeks ago, when I unexpectedly lost my job of 12 years. In the days that followed, it became clear that it was time to start doing what I feel like I was prodded to do three years ago.

I had been toying with the idea, then one morning I was on the treadmill again. This time, I was in my basement, not the YMCA, and the music was coming from the soundbar, not my earbuds.

The same U2 song came on.

It brought me back to three years ago at the YMCA. And I knew it was time. This time, there was no internal struggle, just acceptance and a simple confidence.

Sure, some fear crept up, but it wasn’t overpowering.

Some of the same thoughts as before came up. “My life isn’t that unique.” “I don’t have that much to talk about.” But I didn’t let them stay.

I listened to the lyrics.

Now, I’m fully aware that they have a very specific backstory. But, for me, in that moment, these lyrics meant something very specific.

They meant taking a risk to reach for something new and different, something stirring. Something that beckons, but that might be a little painful.

And, in doing so, moving away from the things and spaces that create familiarity and that so often define safety and security.

I wanna reach out / And touch the flame /
Where the streets have no name

Twelve years ago this month, I was offered a 60-day contract position as a content editor for Expedia. My job was to add SEO keywords to hotel descriptions. Not the most exciting gig, but, thanks to my desperation for any kind of work, I was thrilled.

I’d spent the previous year in school, eager for a career change on the heels of nearly 15 years in the travel industry where I did mostly corporate travel operations. I’ve always been a writer at heart, and that year of school led me to complete a technical writing and editing program that ultimately helped land the contract position (ironically, right back in the travel industry).

My days of SEO keywords were limited; I soon transitioned into a different role, still writing and editing hotel descriptions, but in a different context. My contract continued to get extended and somehow I even managed to avoid the mandatory 60-day break required of contractors at the end of 12 months of continual employment. A year and a half in, I was offered a full-time position. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Creating and managing hotel content for the largest online travel company in the world with its host of individual brands has its ups and downs, for sure. From high moments like conceptualizing the design for and leading the creation of a flagship hotel product for a recently acquired brand, to not-so-high moments like making a technical error that caused an obscure policy notice meant for only a handful of hotel properties globally to accidentally start displaying online for every. single. property. worldwide. To painful moments like nauseating days with 8 or 10 meetings on the calendar.

As the years went by, I did less writing in favor of more administrative things like product, data, and process management (hence the insane number of meetings that could insidiously creep onto the calendar). But, all in all, things were good and stable and I was fortunate enough to work with fantastic people.

A little over a week ago, I was sitting at home and a Google notification popped up on my phone for a GeekWire article. Mind you, I hardly ever get notifications for news articles and I usually just swipe them away. This one caught my attention: “Expedia cuts 3,000 jobs.”

“Damn,” I thought, “That’s a lot of jobs.”

On the heels of recent announcements about the company’s performance, we all knew that layoffs were likely, but I don’t think anyone would’ve expected 3,000 of them.

I read the article, still surprised by the number of people impacted, but not giving it much thought. My team was continually managing a fairly large amount of important work and we were already stretched thin, so it seemed unlikely that we’d be hit. Plus, as the most senior member on the team, I’d probably be safe in the unlikely event that the layoffs did reach us.

So, honestly, my feelings mostly revolved around the fact that I was finding this information out from a GeekWire article, and that said article contained the entire text of a “confidential” email announcing the layoffs that had been sent to all employees at 4:30pm that afternoon, 30 minutes after I’d signed off for the day. But, whatever. “Must be a mole inside Expedia,” I mused.

The next morning I signed in from my home office as per usual and promptly saw a new meeting on my calendar. “Important meeting – attendance mandatory.” The only other attendee was my boss’s boss’s boss.

My heart sunk and tension formed in my chest. Within moments, tears started to well up in my eyes.

I took a deep breath and stared at the screen as my brain desperately tried to conjure up every potential reason for this meeting other than it being an announcement that I was losing my job.

A few ideas came to mind, but they were all a stretch. And the reasoning that gave me comfort the previous evening went straight out the window. In my heart, I knew that my Expedia run was over.

For the next 75 minutes, my stomach felt like it was on a roller coaster. Tears came and went, sometimes just a few of them, other times like a geyser and with a force that left me gasping for air.

They were tears of fear, uncertainty, doubt, and grief as I realized that the familiarity and pseudo-security that I’d known for the last 12 years were about to be ripped away.

The meeting came and went rather uneventfully, ending with “Thank you for your professionalism during your time with the company and especially during this difficult meeting.”

I bit at my lower lip and nodded, knowing that if I opened my mouth to speak, the tears that had just started brimming in the corner of my eyes would be unleashed and any attempted words would be unintelligible. So I just gave a “thumbs up” and another nod to the camera before disconnecting.

The subsequent few hours before my network access was shut off were surreal.

I was in a daze, intensified by the isolation of being at home and the fact that I’d been asked not to proactively notify my team members at the risk of sparking a firestorm; tensions were already high. Instead, I waited for the conversations to trickle in from my colleagues as they found out, one by one.

The tears continued to come and go. I didn’t bother trying to hold them back; I’ve learned there’s no benefit in that.

I took comfort in the fact that, in the last several years, life has brought me through a couple of other massive changes where I was forced to let go of things that had provided me with years of familiarity and security.

Grateful as I was to be able to draw on this comfort, it doesn’t make the pain in the moment any less real. It doesn’t take away the fear that starts pulsating in the chest.

But it does provide hope.

Am I angry about being laid off? No. Bitter? No. Sad? Well, I think anytime we lose something that’s been an integral part of our lives, there’s a grieving period.

Am I scared? At times. And I’m sure fear will continue to present itself.

Largely, I’m grateful for the experiences, opportunities, and relationships that the previous 12 years provided (I think I just gave myself some journaling material for the next week).

And, more than anything, I’m hopeful. Because one thing I’ve learned from life is that opportunity presents itself on the heels of going through the very things we may think we’d never make it through.

But we have to surrender to the unknown.

Transcendence in an Unexpected Place

Into the Unknown