I was laid off after 19 years. Where do I even begin?

The first instinct is to apply everywhere immediately, because applying feels like motion. It is mostly not.

Spend the first two weeks writing down what you actually know — the processes, the failure modes, the things that only become obvious after a decade inside something. That list is your asset, and most people never make it.

Then find the twenty organisations that would pay for that specific knowledge. Twenty targeted approaches beat two hundred applications, and it is not close.