a word on emotion

This week I found out I'm probably going to lose my job. But not just me. Also about 40 other people, some of whom I have known since I was 18 years old. I say probably because the decision has been made but we have a week to fight it, and fight it we did at a public rally today that attracted an estimated 1000 people.
The people closest to me will know that I don't necessarily love my job. I have been a journalist for almost 21 years, but for the majority of that time I have struggled emotionally with what it means to work in the media. About three years ago, just before I fell pregnant with my third child, I reached what felt like the closest thing to a balance I could handle. I moved from the news desk, working afternoons and dealing with the increasingly bleak state of the world, back to features where I had learnt my trade. Day work, mostly positive content, friendly faces. I reduced my hours to 10 a week, which allowed me to drop off and pick up my two school-aged daughters each morning and afternoon. I worked around my husband's irregular shiftwork, and we managed to avoid the expense - emotional and financial - of childcare for our youngest. It was the best I could do, even though some weeks it felt like barely enough.
Now I am facing the prospect of losing even that. At first I was practical, and when my husband and I did the sums we figured we might just be able to manage, if he did regular overtime shifts. But then I went to work, and I saw the faces of those people I've known for two decades, who were there when I had my heart broken, who had their babies when I was having my babies. And I can't quite believe it's come to this.
As much as I have struggled against my job at times, I know that I have never been happier going to work than I have in the past 18 months. I know that I always work hard to do things right, just as I know that of my friends and colleagues. I know that as a mother, some days I am so grateful to be getting five hours of adult conversation, hot tea and oxygen. I know that the days I go to work are sometimes the only days in that week that I will brush my hair. And that anyone will notice.
And so I'm scared. That I will lose my job, and that with it will go a little part of me that I've become accustomed to having, ever since I was 18 years old.