Holding in Grief

I got scared, and I allowed fear to hold me back. I told myself I was just playing it safe until it was the “right time”. To be honest, I was giving in to the fear and allowing it to silence who I am.

I was confronted at my current place of employment about something I am most passionate about. About tarot and how I help people. I felt the undercurrent of disdain and termination during the whole “talk” we were having.

In truth I have been hiding from the fact of how hurt I was about the whole thing. Part of it has do with the fact that someone went out of their to expose something that they were hoping would get me fired. The betrayal wasn’t what hurt most. I have done my best for the past few years to present the theology my place of employment follows to the children. I teach at their current learning level, despite my personal feelings towards the religion itself. I never once crossed over theologies or beliefs to the children or anyone else who works there. I purposely hid and put on the correct mask just because I knew that was what was expected of me.

So, knowing all of this, just to be told that I could be terminated for something I have NEVER brought to this place of employment in anyway hurt me. I kept these two things separate because I knew they needed to be. I was smart, and yet I was still attacked.

Tarot has helped me grow in so many ways and helped me through so many hardships and to have that question because it can be considered “evil” hurt. Tarot helped me find value in myself. It helped me learn to love myself despite my past, and to forgive myself so I can move forward. Tarot gave me liberation to get to know and love myself fully as I am and not as others want me to be. In a huge sense, they attacked me as a person. They attacked all the work I have used to grow to the person they appreciate because they disproved of my method.

So truly what’s been silencing me is the grief I’ve been refusing to feel. I feel as though my time there is on a clock and it’s a matter of time before the relationship with that employer will come to an end and that’s what scares me. I love my colleagues and my classroom. I love my parents and my boss, but none of that will matter as I continue down a journey that is very close to my heart.

My authentic self is going to be my undoing there, but I need to remember that just leads me to my dreams and to where I am meant to be.