I've been there, done that. Welcome to the club my friend.
The only reason I got through my last layoff without stooping into a deep depression is that I've done this dance so many fucking times that I'm tired of it all.
Luckily I had a new job about a month later, which I 100% acknowledge is luck.
I still miss my previous job, it was much better than the one I have now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not angry at being employed, I'm just sad that I didn't get to remain employed with the last workplace.
I get it, 100%. Nothing you said is really all that abnormal. You clearly liked the job, and there's no good way to express that loss. It's just something you have to go through all the stages of. Eventually the whole ordeal will seem further and further away and you'll settle into a routine and get your life back to where it should be. You lost something and it's okay to be sad about that.
What isn't good is if you start getting any worse than where you are at now. If you start sliding deeper into it, or you feel like you're drowning, please seek help. The people who care about you don't want to lose you.
My advice for the future is: never invest more than you're willing to lose, whether you're taking about money or emotional investment, the reality is that you can lose it all in a snap. Make sure you know what you're risking and ensure you can sacrifice what you've invested if there's a sudden change from management. Take care of yourself first, then worry about everything else.
All good points, and I especially agree about the cable seeking part (working in IT we refer to it as a fiber seeking backhoe, but the same principle applies).
As for a grid connection, I'm not sure 200kW is strictly required for just a backhoe, but if we're taking the example to a practical place of EVs running the show rather than diesel, all of the construction equipment charging at once is probably going to need 200kW combined to charge, if not more; so the point stands IMO.
Just as a mental exercise, thinking about the backhoe specifically, getting it connected to a grid, IMO, would basically require that a temporary structure be erected over where it will be operating to provide a line to the unit from above, since it may need to turn any/all direction(s). Which assumes that it's working in a location where there is free space over the work area, and any time the unit is moved the grid attachment scaffolding would need to go with it.
I imagine the power line would run up one of the legs of the scaffold, to a mid point, then there would be a tensioner on an "extension cable" (of sorts), to the backhoe to avoid any slack that could be caught up in the normal operation of the vehicle.
Needless to say, this is a lot more work and bluntly, wildly impractical for construction use.
I'm just saying it could work, but there's no way in hell any construction company is jumping through the hoops to make it work, even if a backhoe company built one, which they won't because it's wildly impractical and nobody would ever buy one.
Thinking economically about it, there's probably 10,000 cars being driven for every construction vehicle in use, so it's not exactly a large target to focus on. IMO, one of the bigger areas where we should be trying to save emissions is in marine travel. Specifically large cargo ships. With commerce being as international as it is, and only increasing in demand, those ships are running almost 24/7, usually on diesel or another fossil fuel.
Solving that problem would probably have a much larger impact than trying to get construction crews off of using diesel in their equipment.
Just a thought.