8 Middle Adulthood 231I am standing on the mountaintop with the sun beaming brightly, warm-
ing my very bones, and I am saying, “Hello, life. Here I am!”Job Loss in Midlife
Kudu
Kudu was born in Zambia. She has lived in the United Kingdom and the United
States. She lives in the greater Philadelphia area with her husband and two emerging
adult sons.We finally felt at home—confident and aware of what the expectations were.
My husband and I had emigrated from Zambia to the United Kingdom and
finally to the United States. Between our graduate education experiences
along the way and our adaptation to new cultures at each step, we had finally
settled into a small community outside Philadelphia. Tumbi was working as
an architect and I as a systems analyst. Our boys were doing well in school,
involved with their academics and athletics, and we had a community of
neighbors and church folk who had become close. We felt like life was finally
predictable and stable. This is how midlife is supposed to be—one knows
what to expect and can move through life without quite as much effort as
during younger adulthood when everything is new and striving is constant.
Then the first crisis hit.
When Tumbi was “downsized” from his architecture position in August
2008, we had no way of knowing that we were on the early side of an economic
spiral that would get worse before it got better. We knew that architect posi-
tions were few and far between, but living near a major city, we thought a job
would open up in not too long a time. With our oldest son exploring colleges,
we knew losing an income was not a good thing, but my income was fairly
generous and I had good benefits for the family, so we thought we could man-
age until a position became available. As 2008 gave way to 2009–2010, we were
hearing of all the massive job losses affecting many industries. Finding work
was hard for everyone who was being downsized and for those whose busi-
nesses were failing altogether. The first extension of unemployment benefits
helped, but as the years dragged on with no new job for Tumbi, unemployment
benefits ran out and things felt pretty desperate. Of course we knew that there
were literally millions experiencing what we were, for some even worse, but
having company did not make us feel less terrified.
Those years were challenging. Although Tumbi had unemployment com-
pensation at first, it was demoralizing as he kept looking for a job and not
getting one. He took a more active role at our church and with the boys, but
he also started getting depressed. Looking back now, I see that—but at the
time, I was irritated. I was working all day and coming home to a house where
things still needed to be done. I could not really see the efforts he was making
to find new employment. Our marriage was tense.
Eventually, he started going back to Zambia where he could make some
small income and begin to build rental properties that might one day provide