The Beginning of the End

"I've been laid off", he said.

The words hit me like a punch to the gut, and all of the sudden my feet got unbelievably heavy.

The grip on my hand released involuntarily and I nearly dropped the phone.

I had to sit down quickly on the sidewalk while I still had control of my limbs.

It didn't come as a a surprise. Not really.  The corporation that bought up his company had been laying people off left and right.  The past year had been literal hell for the survivors who were each preparing for their turn on the chopping block.  He'd been dragging a black cloud home for quite some time now as his friends were ushered out and the morale of the remaining coworkers fell into a doom spiral.

In my typical fashion I got home and started strategizing.  I built spreadsheets and crunched numbers.  I examined our debt, our assets.  I was a wildwoman.  It was a mad attempt to avoid the inevitable truth that I already knew. The bottom line: we could keep the house on his unemployment income and my business income, but only barely. It would mean a lot of belt-tightening.

And it definitely wouldn't be any fun.

So now what?

Well, this is where adventure begins, always with the ending of something else.

I suppose introductions are in order. I am a 43 year old small business owner, wife, and  mother (the kids came with the man I love, a ready-made family I embrace as my own).  Up until this morning I was living happily in marital and homeowner bliss in La Mirada, CA, a quiet and safe little suburb on the border of the counties of Los Angeles and Orange County.  The winds of change are blowing.