Silence

Walking alone can sometimes feel better than going with someone else. If you stop to think about why that is, then you might realize that when you’re walking by yourself there’s no wrong pace to walk. You can go at whatever speed you feel comfortable and let your mind wander, conjuring any thoughts that naturally emerge. Then again, you might find that you’re missing your walking companion and pleading for someone, anyone to break the silence. That’s around the point in my walk when I turn to music to help me feel better. This experience is not unique to walking. In fact, this is exactly how I feel having gone through a layoff and now reflecting on what led me to creative endeavors.

For as long as I can remember, I have been someone who loved to tell a good story. In another life, I was a data scientist for a large consulting organization where I told stories about fraud with data. There was a slowdown in available work the firm was able to bring in and partners decided to do layoffs. I thought the hard work that I was putting in would save me from a layoff, however, that was not the case. While the grief ate away at me at first, I have come to find that I am definitely not alone in this hardship. In fact, Merle Haggard famously sings about an experience going through difficulties imposed by a layoff in the song “If We Make It Through December,” stating:

Got laid off down at the factory
And their timing’s not the greatest in the world
Heaven knows I been working hard

Those lines resonated with me deeply. Like Merle Haggard, I found myself unemployed at the worst time. Well, technically Merle Haggard was self-employed and was never truly laid off, but in his story he was. Anyway, this story speaks to a common experience shared by many around the world who lost their job. What rings true is that there is never a great time to lose a job and it doesn’t matter how hard you work, you can be laid off. Above all else, you aren’t alone. There are many others who have experienced the pain of losing a job due to external circumstances and sharing our stories can help others that aren’t sure if they are going to make it through.

What helped me in my darkest moments of losing my job was pursuing creative projects that brought me joy and allowed me to showcase my ability to tell stories with analytics about a field I’m passionate about, country music. The silence that had filled my apartment when I was left alone was cut through by Merle Haggard and other musicians like him singing about the pain and hope they clung onto. While I worked on data pipelines with python that scraped lyrics and processed them into visualizations, Merle Haggard’s vinyl spun and he said:

If we make it through December
Got plans to be in a warmer town come summertime
Maybe even California
If we make it through December, we’ll be fine

Those lyrics, to me, speak to a belief that just beyond the current hardships of the year lay a bright future. That the day may be dim, but at the end of the tunnel is a light that we are all trying to make our way to. What I learned from this experience is that there are things that are within our control and things far outside of it. So, we can apply endlessly to ghost jobs, leap over hurdles, and still hear nothing back from recruiters. However, we can also go for a walk and listen to our favorite songs that remind us of how bright tomorrow is going to be.