Grief with a hint of Dark Comedic Relief

"Ya know, I only lost 3 grandparents, my dog." I shrug my shoulders, "I mean, its only March". I laugh and force a sarcastic grin, more of a smirk. Not to mention all the friends I lost in October for simply being a Jew and supporting Israel...

Sadness pulls down the sides of my lips as quick as the forced smiled was put on.

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I'm a marionette and I hold the strings.

Pulling the strings each day to force some sort of normalcy.

I feel like the court jester. What a joke this is! A funny but not so funny joke that my life has become.

A few years ago I broke a mirror. I am not superstitious but sometimes I'm a little stitious. I figured I am working off 4 more years of bad luck from that incident. More recently I had a mirror break although it kind of just fell.. It was not at the fault of anyone. "Does this mean I don't get 7 more years??" the thought that went through my head after I broke it.

Of course I happened to have the mirror break a few weeks before my grandmother, Nanny Caryl, passed away. My last remaining grandparent, gone just like that. I've been in survival mode for what feels like years. I have now entered a different stage, survival mode while being grief stricken. SO grief stricken that I have lost all direction. With even less people to turn to.

Part of me cannot figure out which one hurts the most. Of course losing family is difficult and it is just a natural part of the human cycle. Losing mans best friend was the most difficult and emotional. I lost my family cat in early 2023 and now Nitro, our amazing dog. Pets are our loyal companions that give us more than I think they know. The love and affection from just a few pets with Nitro could make anything feel even a little better. It affected me a lot and between all the loss and sickness I was missing work. Sadly, life happens and there is NO WAY to plan for when shit hits the mother fing fan.

How many times have you uttered the words "as if it could get any worse!" ? I found myself thinking this while also knowing it can ALWAYS get worse. This year had felt like one bad thing after another. So, I decided to spend more time working at the mountain. My happy place. The work there aids my mental health so much as well as helps my lungs. My other job was starting to really harm my health. That is a big reason I picked up more work at the mountain. Ski instructing helped my stamina and it was outside. I cherish the joy I get from teaching little ones too. It is not an easy job, but a very rewarding one. I've developed so many connections there between my mountain family and the families I teach. Some families I've taught each of their three kids by now. It really is cool to think about.

And yet I think in spirals. Constantly going back to one thought. Life at the moment, makes me think about the South Park episode with the ski instructor "If you pizza when you're supposed to French fry, you're gonna have a bad time". Why my brain goes here I wish I knew. Maybe I did pizza too much for them with all the loss and sickness, and they wanted me to french fry and keep charging on.

The cannabis industry tends to be very high school, at least in this state. This is part of what made me realize its time to leave. I am an honest person and pride myself on having integrity in all I do. I've dealt with weird energies a d antisemitismat other cannabis places. After some time, this situation stopped popping up in my head. One day I had this light bulb moment.

The antisemitism in the states has risen at an alarming rate since 10/7/2023. I was vocal about how much it bothered me. I was vocal with certain coworkers about how I felt with the world today and being Jewish. Other than that I was quiet in person. I had 2 coworkers there who made me feel that they had very antisemitic views. Then they left and a weight was lifted. When this light bulb moment happened I thought "Well they just said things were brought to their attention and if it didn't have to do with work... and even if they did believe me when what I told them what they said was untrue, could it be my coworkers brought this to their attention?? Could it be that my supposedly supportive of the Jewish people boss, actually really didn't support it at all? Could it be they were trying to save face so they don't have issues with their company?" To many it will sounds silly.

This is a real thing and a real problem. Countless Jewish people have lost jobs, sponsors, friends, etc. all because they are proud of who they are. They see the truth in what happened and is happening. Again, who knows what happened in my situation. However, way too many companies would rather lose a hard working Jew to save their reputation, rather than stand out and NOT DISCRIMINATE. At the end of the day that's what all this is...

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I dream of a time when I know people that only say pleasant and kind things when I'm not in the room. That's one of my big goals, for friendships and acquaintances. That's what I take from what occurred. And I also see a trend that is bothersome to me. I understand not many people wind up with a job they truly like. That is the difference in my opinion between a job and career. A career is something long term that you have a passion for while a job is something you do. There is nothing wrong with either. We all do what we have to do to get by. I have come to the realization that I may never have a career that I am fully passionate about and enjoy. What I have learned over the last few years is that I just want a workplace that cares enough about my role there. A company that appreciates the work I do, as the individual I am, to hold on to me. Life happens and I cannot control that. For the first month this year my family finally didn't have something tragic happen. How crazy is that?? I get so hard on myself and down with the way things have gone, however they have been out of my control. Time to surrender.

Isn't that the truth though?? There is very little in our control and to surrender is where a lot happens. So I reflected and reflected again and reflected some more....

I am authentic and yet some people cannot handle true integrity and authenticity. I do not mean that in the annoying way many will read that. Each year I choose a word. Last years word was "Integrity", before that "Accountability". I have yet to choose the right word for this year. Almost half way through the year, I do wonder if the word will ever come to mind. Anyways, it is hard to find those down to earth, self aware people that also believe in the Jewish State, of Israel, and do not want harm to/Jewish people dead. So I keep hoping to eventually have a good circle of people. The kind of people that truly love you and only talk highly of you when you aren't around. Those that make plans with you and take turns driving to you.

The thing with truly loving people is accepting all of them. This means recognizing that we are humans and we aren't going to like every aspect of a person. Many of us are multifaceted beings and as long as we practice self awareness with accountability while also giving benefit of the doubt we should all be able to get along, right?? Easy 🙃

I guess I am full of wishful thinking...