I woke up this morning for my fasted cardio and as I'm on the treadmill going through Facebook memories, I came across a post I made a year ago that made me think back on what happened that day. I knew it was during the pandemic, so I went through my work email and found an email. That's when it hit me that a year ago today that I had a meeting with my manager at the time, informing me that starting May 15th, I was put on furlough/leave without pay for eight weeks. I felt like someone grabbed my heart and tore it out from my chest after that Zoom meeting. I was devastated. I started to think and worry about how was I going to keep my fiancé and myself afloat. I worried that I wasn't going to be eligible for unemployment. As soon as the meeting was over, I walked to the living room and stared at my fiancé (who was my boyfriend at the time). He was playing Call of Duty: Warzone. He glanced over and notice something was wrong, and he asked me that question. What's wrong, honey?

I've been put on furlough from my job.

What does that mean?

Basically put on leave without pay.