I didn’t sign up for this.

I just finished watching this movie, The Company Men.  Aside from starring Ben Affleck and Kevin Costner (two of my favorite scrumptious pieces of eye candy) it also spurred my need to share a sentiment that has been seething beneath my typically happy-go-lucky exterior: I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR THIS.

To provide context, Ben Affleck and his colleagues in the movie, including the amazing Tommy Lee Jones, experience what myself and millions have over the last several years: they lost their jobs.

The resulting landslide is the ripple effects on their kids (who offer to sell their XBox because they know the family can’t afford it), their psyches (they find themselves at a loss for what to do every day), and their souls (one coworker sadly cannot take the rejection and kills himself.).

Hell, it’s a business, not a charity.

Yep, that’s true. But the hard-working souls that built that business held a false sense of security that their families would be able to pay their rents and mortgages, feed themselves, pay for birthday gifts. That sense of security falls away, and desperation creeps in.

In the movie, Ben Affleck considers selling their house and his wife asks if they can move in with his parents. “I choose death!” He retorts and says that will never happen, when in fact that’s exactly what his family ends up doing.

For my family, it didn’t mean moving in with our parents (I would rather choose death, though I love them).

Losing my job meant losing half of our family income, losing my corner office with colleagues that I admired, and losing the self-esteem that came along with getting corporate work accomplished every day at my company, LandAmerica Financial Group, Inc.  It meant selling the house that we loved in the neighborhood filled with friends that we loved, leaving a school we felt confident in, and cutting our expenses to mesh with our newly-acquired (deeply decreased) family income. It meant launching into a business in which I had no experience (Richmondmom.com), putting in ridiculously-long hours on nights and weekends, and questioning myself every step of the way.

It also meant the second layoff I’d experienced. At the time, I was thirty-five.

I will win. Why? Because I have faith, courage, and enthusiasm.

This is the mantra the Company Men are encouraged with when they report to their “offices” post-layoff as part of their outplacement package. And, it’s true: although friends and family are well-meaning, questions like “Did you get the job?” or “Any news yet?” soon result in cringes and shudders when the answer isn’t a desirable one, and the only cheerleader you seem to be able to rely on after losing your job is often yourself.

Almost three years after losing my job, the ripples are still circling, the residual effects still felt from my home to my kids to my psyche. I started a job well below my qualifications with hordes of other like-associates and was thankful to have it, much like the men in this movie. Questions from the kids still stop me in my tracks: why did we have to leave our old neighborhood? Why can’t we just go back?

The voice often creeps in: I didn’t sign up for this. But then, which of us does? No one promised us a rose garden, and no abounding network, stellar education, or impressive years of service is a guarantee. And that’s okay.

It’s only money, I tell myself. We are blessed with good health, wonderful families and an incredible net made of friends, many of which have experienced the same plight. Friends have lost a parent, a child–the worst loss ever–they didn’t sign up for it either. Yet we all drink our coffee and put one foot in front of the other. We move on, and our attitude is the only fuel in the tank some days.

We’re lucky in many respects. I was able to spend two years with my children, watching them grow and experiencing many of their class field trips. I picked my boys up from the bus almost every day. I built a brand in Richmond and have met some of the most amazing people I probably wouldn’t have come to know otherwise, which I still pinch myself about daily.

And yet, I still didn’t sign up for this. Yet we’ll learn how to adapt to our new lives, those of us in this “non-volunteer” bucket, perhaps prevent some of the mistakes that caused us to get in this spot again if we’re able to. With certainty, we’ll hold tight to the things in our lives that will never fall away: our families, our perseverance, and our immense strength.