The Parking Lot

The thing nobody tells you about getting fired: you end up in a lot of parking lots.

Not going anywhere. Just sitting. In your car. In a parking lot. Staring at a steering wheel that has nothing to do with where you’re going because you don’t know where you’re going.

The parking lot is the waiting room between who you were and who you’re going to be. It’s where you make phone calls nobody answers. Where you stare at job listings without clicking. Where you sit with the engine off because starting the car means going somewhere and you don’t know where to go.

The parking lot is the office of the recently fired. Open floor plan. No walls. Bad lighting. The rent is your dignity and the lease is month to month.