Honestly,
I had spent a year and a half working through organizational changes and job eliminations.
Then it was my turn.
I was offered severance or the opportunity to find a different role within the company. After years of building a career there, I was facing the possibility that this part of my life was ending.
The night before what I thought might be my last day, I texted my husband:
“I’m afraid that when I close my laptop for the last time, I’ll disappear.”
This was not an exciting new chapter I had selected from a brochure.
I had built relationships there. Learned things the hard way. Grown into work that mattered to me.
And now I was trying to imagine what remained when the role was gone.
My husband wrote back:
“You don’t disappear when people are still thinking about you.”
It remains one of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me.
He did not send a list of transferable skills.
He did not suggest updating my résumé before I had finished being sad.
He answered the part I had actually said out loud.
I was afraid of disappearing.
We talk about work in practical terms. Titles. Responsibilities. Paychecks. Benefits. All important. The electric company has very little interest in whether we feel professionally fulfilled.
But a job can also give us a place in other people’s days.
People know what to ask us. They recognize our name. We know who needs a little context, who prefers the short version, and who is absolutely going to have one more question.
Over time, being part of that world can become tangled up with being ourselves.
Then a role changes, a team reorganizes, or an ending arrives before we have found language for it.
We may understand the business explanation and still wonder something much less tidy:
Will anyone remember I was here?
My story did not end the way I feared that night. A different opportunity eventually became part of it.
But I do not want to turn that into a promise that every difficult ending produces a better title by the following Tuesday.
People deserve comfort before the happy update.
What my husband said mattered before I knew what would happen next.
The relationships were real.
The work I had done was real.
The person I had become while doing it was not something I would have to return with the equipment.
A title helps explain what we do. It cannot hold everything we have meant to people while doing it.
Someone may still use a question we taught them to ask.
Someone may remember that we made time when they were new.
Someone may think of us when they finally understand something we spent weeks trying to explain. Delayed credit is still credit. I am willing to accept it.
We do not always get to see those things.
And when someone’s role changes, we can help make them visible.
We can say, “I still use what you taught me.”
We can send the message after the farewell thread has gone quiet.
We can ask how someone is doing without making every conversation a request for a career update.
A person should not have to arrive with good news to remain welcome.
If you are facing an ending you did not choose, I will not tell you a sentence can solve everything it brings.
There may be bills, decisions, grief, and a very practical next step waiting for your attention.
But you are allowed to need something besides a plan.
That night, I needed my husband to remind me that closing a laptop was not the same as erasing a life.
You don’t disappear when people are still thinking about you.
And sometimes we need to tell them that we are.
Reflections
1. Which parts of my identity have become so closely tied to my role that a change in one feels like losing both?
2. Whose influence still shows up in my work, and have I told them?
3. When someone is going through a career change, do I make room for how they feel—or move straight to advice?
From the Toolbox
1. Name what the change means. Separate the practical concerns from the personal loss. A paycheck, a daily routine, a familiar team, and a sense of belonging are different needs; they may need different kinds of support.
2. Keep a record of your contribution. Write down what you helped improve, what you learned, and the skills you can carry forward. Use your own examples without taking confidential records or employer-owned material.
3. Tell someone what stayed with you. Send a specific, truthful note about something they taught you or a moment when they helped. “I still use that question you showed me” says more than a general compliment.
4. Ask what support would help. Try, “Would you like me to listen, think through options with you, or help with something practical?” Let their answer guide the conversation.
5. Keep the connection ordinary. Follow up after the announcement or farewell. Invite a conversation that does not depend on a new job, a polished plan, or a positive update.
