Laid Off on Friday. Still Here Tuesday.

On grief, motherhood, and the kind of clarity you only get when a chapter ends before you were ready.

I got laid off on Friday.

Even writing that still feels surreal. The sentence is too neat for something that landed so hard in my body. It does not capture the shock, or the way your mind starts racing before your heart has caught up. It does not explain what it feels like to have something end abruptly when you were still very much inside of it.

The first couple of days were not graceful. They were not inspiring. They were not polished or profound. They were human. I was angry, hurt, and grieving. I went through the whole emotional carousel in record time, and then got back on for another round just in case my nervous system had not made the point clearly enough the first time. I replayed conversations. I questioned things that did not need questioning. I let the what-ifs creep in. I felt the humiliation that sometimes comes with endings, even when you know logically that being laid off is not the same as failing. I cried because I needed to cry. I sat in discomfort because there was no shortcut around it. Sometimes the only honest thing to do is admit that something hurts and let it hurt.

And yet, somewhere in all of that, life kept moving.

This morning, my son woke me up the way he always does, with absolutely no concern for adult grief, career transitions, or existential spirals. He slammed the door open, climbed into the bed at 6:30 am on the dot, and pressed his cold little feet against my back like it was the most natural thing in the world. I did not have my hearing on yet, but I looked at his face and read his lips. “Hi mami.” Just like that. So simple. So routine. So full of love.

And I smiled back before I even had time to think about it.

There are moments in motherhood that do not ask your permission before they save you. That was one of them. Not because it erased what happened or magically made me feel fine. But because it reminded me that my life is still very much here. My love is still here. My body is still here. My purpose is still here. There is something so grounding about being brought back into the world by a small child with cold feet and a familiar smile. In that moment, I was not a woman who had just been laid off. I was Mami. I was home. I was loved and needed in the most ordinary, sacred way. And that ordinary sacredness has been carrying me.

I do not have the luxury of collapsing into sadness. Not because my grief is not valid. It is. Not because I am above it. I am not. But because life is still asking things of me. There are still snacks to pack and little shoes to find and tiny moments of joy that refuse to wait for me to get all the way emotionally caught up. Life does not pause neatly for heartbreak. It keeps moving, sometimes tenderly, sometimes rudely, but always insistently. And I am learning that there is something healing in letting it.

So yes, I wrote parts of this in tears. Real tears. The kind that come when you are trying to name what has happened while also trying not to let it define you. The kind that come when you are tired, scared, relieved, grateful, angry, hopeful, and completely unsure which feeling is supposed to take center stage.

But I also know this about myself. I am going to dry those tears. I am going to drink a coconut juice. I am going to eat fancy cheese. I am going to sit on the couch tonight with my husband and watch a movie. I am going to let softness exist next to disappointment. I am going to let pleasure exist next to uncertainty. I am going to let this be hard without letting it become the whole story.

That feels important to say because sometimes, when something big breaks open in your life, there is an instinct to turn suffering into identity. To become the sadness. To become the loss. To become the rejection. And I refuse to do that. This happened to me, but it is not all that I am. I can be deeply affected and still deeply intact. I can mourn what ended and still feel excited about what might begin. There is also the harder truth that half my team was cut. And that detail matters, because it reminds me that what happened was bigger than me. That context does not erase the grief, but it does locate it more truthfully. It reminds me not to internalize what was never mine alone to carry.

And that is part of why I refuse to shrink this moment into shame.

And I do feel something clarifying. Somewhere under the grief is clarity, and somewhere under the disruption is a sharpening. Somewhere under the ending is a question I have been circling for a long time: what do I actually want now?

Not what is convenient or safe or fits neatly into a box that other people handed me. I am being forced to ask myself: What do I want? What kind of work do I want to lead? What kind of life do I want to build around it? What kind of woman am I trying to become in this next season?

I want to treat this next stretch of life like it matters, because it does.

I think part of what this chapter is clarifying for me is I want to continue to lead content strategy.

Over the last few years, I made a very intentional decision to expand myself. I am proud of the work I have done, and I am also glad I let myself move beyond being seen explicitly and only through the lens of disability work. I permitted myself to expand more fully into social media, storytelling, brand, and marketing. I let myself claim other parts of my talent and let myself become bigger than one category. And that matters now, maybe more than ever.

And when I sit down and look at my resume, I see a woman who proved to herself that she could work inside a corporate organization, navigate complexity, build across departments, and do excellent work with brilliant people. I see someone who did not just show up to execute tasks, but to shape culture, sharpen messaging, and help build something bigger than herself. I see someone who worked cross-functionally with marketing, design, HR, sales, and leadership. I see someone who learned how to move ideas through a corporate organization, earn trust, influence, collaborate, advocate, and deliver.

That matters to me deeply because, for a long time, part of my growth was not just about the work itself. It was about proving to myself that I could thrive in rooms like that. That I could belong there. That I could build there. That I could contribute real value there. And I did.

So what am I looking for next?

I’m looking for a content leadership role at the intersection of story, strategy, and visibility. I want to build content systems that turn complex ideas into stronger thought leadership, clearer brand narrative, and real business momentum. I want to work with smart people building something that matters. I want to help shape how a company shows up in the world, how it earns trust, and how its ideas become unforgettable.

I’m also building Project Hearing with more intention — as a platform for accessible marketing, inclusive communication, and the kind of ideas I want to keep sharpening in public.

I also know this next season is about being seen more clearly. About standing fully and confidently in what I know how to do. Over the next few weeks, I want to let people see the full range of my work and the depth behind it: my voice, my thinking, my perspective, my consistency, and my discipline. I want to build in public with intention. I do not want to keep waiting for permission to show the full scope of my talent. Because the next chapter of my career may not come only from submitting applications into a portal and hoping somebody sees what I can do. It may come from finally letting myself be seen, clearly and consistently, for what I have been building all along.

So yes, watch me journey all of this.

Because that is what this is becoming for me. A reckoning. A reset. A narrowing and a widening at the same time. A moment that hurts, yes, but also a moment that is asking me to get honest about the life and work I want to build next.

I got laid off on Friday.

And here I am, only days later, still tender, still emotional, still a little bruised, but no longer confused.

I am still here. I am still mami. I am still a storyteller. I am still ambitious. I am still disciplined. I am still full of ideas. I am still someone who believes beautiful things can be built from broken plans.

And maybe that is the real story here.

Not just that I got laid off. Not even just that I am hopeful about what is next. It is that I am learning, in real time, how to hold loss without losing myself.

If this next chapter puts me on your mind for a content leadership role, a strategic conversation, or a collaboration aligned with the work I do best, I’d love to hear from you.

I’m not waiting until this chapter is polished to speak. I’m writing from the middle of it.

And that feels like a beginning.