It’s been a while since I’ve posted here.

Apparently, while I wasn’t looking, life decided that meant I had accumulated unused drama credits.

So, where have I been?

Pull up a chair. Bring coffee. Or bourbon. Honestly, I’m not judging.

In the span of a few weeks, I lost my job and I lost Phoebe.

There’s a sentence I never expected to write.

After more than five years with my company, my position disappeared in a reduction in force. One day I had a job, a routine, coworkers, deadlines, emails and all the ordinary things we complain about because we assume they’ll still be there tomorrow.

And then they weren’t.

Suddenly I was signing severance paperwork, returning my laptop, figuring out insurance and benefits, updating a résumé I hadn’t expected to need, applying for jobs, interviewing, and trying to answer that cheerful little question:

“So, what are you looking for in your next opportunity?”

Ma’am, at the moment I’m looking for health insurance and a paycheck.

We can discuss my five-year career goals later.

The strange thing about losing a job is that you don’t just lose income. You lose structure. Identity gets rattled around a little. Monday stops feeling like Monday. Weekends lose some of their magic because apparently Saturday isn’t nearly as exciting when nobody made you work Friday.

And underneath the jokes, it hurt.

It still hurts.

I know I’m good at what I do. I know what I bring to a company. But knowing those things doesn’t make rejection feel good, and it doesn’t magically erase the uncertainty of wondering what happens next.

And then there was Phoebe. 🥺💔

My sweet girl.

My Corgi. My shadow. My demanding little supervisor who spent years making absolutely certain I understood that her needs were, at all times, the highest priority in the household.

Losing her was different.

There had been anticipatory grief for a long time. At fifteen, every change made me wonder whether we were getting close. I had already decided that I wasn’t going to keep asking her tired little body to endure tests and procedures just because I wasn’t ready. I loved her enough to know that my job was not to keep her here at any cost.

Knowing that doesn’t make losing her hurt less.

Grief doesn’t care how prepared you thought you were.

And maybe that’s one of the strangest parts of this season of my life. I’ve already learned that lesson.

I lost my husband more than three years ago. I know grief. I know it changes shape. I know you can laugh while you’re grieving and that laughing doesn’t mean you’re finished grieving. I know you can have a perfectly normal Tuesday and suddenly something reaches inside your chest and squeezes.

Knowing the landscape doesn’t keep you from getting lost in it again.

Maggie is still here, of course.

My tiny Chihuahua tornado siren. Blanket tunneler. Affection monopolist. Approximately 73% ears.

She had about nine and a half years with Phoebe, too.

We’re figuring out this new version of home together. Quite frankly, we’re both a little lost.

So what have I been doing while my life rearranges the furniture without asking permission?

I’ve been baking.

A lot.

What started as “I think I’d like to bake more often” has somehow become the Choosing Always Cookie Collection, because apparently Unemployed Heather requires a test kitchen.

There have been Choosing Cinnamon cookies. Choosing Comfort. Choosing Oatmeal. Choosing Amaretto. Choosing Chocolate Chip.

There have been test cookies and experimental batches and scientific inquiries into the precise relationship between baking time and chewy centers.

There was also the Gluten Godzilla Incident.

We don’t discuss that.

My enormous ladybug cookie jar, which I once described as the Buc-ee’s of cookie jars, is finally fulfilling her destiny. She sits on the counter filled with homemade cookies, looking ridiculously pleased with herself.

And I’ve been writing.

Choosing Always is still here.

In fact, sometimes I think that book showed up in my life exactly when I was going to need it.

It began last year when I started writing to work through grief, loneliness, life and love. Writing exercises became scenes. Scenes became characters. Characters became people who apparently had opinions about what happened next.

And eventually I looked at all of it and thought:

Wait.

This could be a book.

So I kept going.

And somewhere along the way, “choosing” escaped the manuscript and started showing up everywhere.

Choosing Always.

Choosing Comfort.

Choosing Cinnamon.

Choosing Oatmeal.

And, because life has a sense of humor:

Choosing Layoffs.

Okay, technically I did not choose that one.

I didn’t choose losing my job.

I didn’t choose losing Phoebe.

I didn’t choose widowhood.

There are so many things in this life we don’t get to choose.

Maybe that’s why the word means so much to me now.

Because there are still things I can choose.

I can choose to send another résumé after somebody tells me no.

I can choose to show up for an interview even when my confidence has taken a few punches.

I can choose to write another page.

I can choose to make another batch of cookies.

I can choose to laugh at something completely ridiculous five minutes after crying.

I can miss Phoebe terribly and still smile at Maggie being Maggie.

I can grieve the life I thought I was going to have and remain curious about the one that’s taking shape.

I can be scared and hopeful at the same time.

I can be sad without deciding that everything is sad.

That’s something I’ve had to learn more than once.

There seems to be this idea that resilience means getting knocked down and immediately standing back up with your hands triumphantly planted on your hips.

My version is considerably less photogenic.

Sometimes resilience is crying.

Sometimes it’s sitting on the couch in your pajamas at 11 a.m. because you’re unemployed and have completely lost your sense of time.

Sometimes it’s opening the laptop and applying for one more job.

Sometimes it’s writing about imaginary people because they help you understand the real one staring back from the mirror.

And sometimes resilience is putting butter on the counter to soften because we’re baking cookies.

I don’t know what’s next.

That’s uncomfortable for someone who would really appreciate receiving the complete itinerary, including confirmation numbers.

But I’m beginning to think maybe I don’t have to know.

I’ve said before:

You don’t have to know the ending before you take the next step.

Apparently life heard me and said, Excellent. Let’s test that theory.

Rude.

But here I am.

Still writing.

Still baking.

Still laughing.

Still grieving.

Still applying.

Still loving.

Still occasionally wondering what day it is.

And still choosing what I can, inside a life that sometimes chooses things for me.

Maybe that’s enough for now.

💜

Menopause & Malarkey: where the hormones are questionable, the employment status is complicated, the cookies are plentiful, and apparently we’re rebuilding again.

©️2026 Heather Nicole Kight. All rights reserved.