Where Allegiance Lives

Over time, identity can settle into what we do and where we’re needed. You rarely notice the tie while it’s holding. It feels like a natural way to live, and you show up knowing it matters.

When that place falls away, the loss rarely stays contained. It takes the role, and the version of you that existed there. That’s why the grief can feel larger than the change itself.

I felt this during a conversation about work and ambition, something I’d spent most of my life chasing. Partway through, the executive I was speaking with stopped me mid-thought and asked me to hold my hands up in front of my face.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“Ten fingers.”

“And what else?”

“Two rings.”

He paused. Then asked who had put those rings there. When I said my husband, he nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “There’s no ring on your finger from work.”

I felt exposed.

He went on to say that in business, roles can disappear without warning. When they do, the pain comes from realizing how much you gave to something that was never going to hold you.

I didn’t argue. I didn’t rush to explain myself. I just let it land. I’d been tying my identity to something that could disappear at any moment.