Why do I write? To confess? To unburden myself? To leave a record of my trials, of my tribulations, of my slow and inescapable descent into madness? Do I simply write because I cannot speak all of the words racing in my thoughts? That even my mother tongue cannot capture the words aloud?
Is it because I live in a world where my truth is too much? Too powerful? Too graphic? Too real? Too undesired? Too unwanted?
Am I lying when I speak? Do I bear false witness to the world? Why must I always hide behind this mask? Behind the greatest lie of all, “I am all right.”
I smile in despair. I laugh while choking down tears. I write self-affirming words when I am filled with self-hatred. I am okay, my guiding deception.
I am a liar, a fake, a fraud, an impostor. I am a fox clothed in wool, lying in wait to take advantage of the best intentions of those around me. I am an emotional sponge, a succubus of the heart. I absorb everything around me: emotions, experiences, traumas, and the suffering of everyone around me. I anguish over their pain, I cry over their sorrows.
I am the demon in their nightmares, I pine for death over their lamentations. I cannot escape this misery, this overwhelming and all-encompassing agony. It tempers every happiness, every moment of joy; it never fails to to extinguish the flame within me.
Sometimes that pain is the only fire I have left, the only truth I can cling to. The memories and regrets, forever carved into my flesh, stand as a monument to the only past I can remember. I look at the them, I think of those moments, I think of the look on her face, I think of the hate and anger and utter desire to make myself feel pain. My greatest work, written in blood, forearms as pages, lines fading like an old book.
I do not know why I do this, why I break open my chest to let the world see my aching heart, my bleeding soul. It is a compulsion, an obsession, an unquenchable desire to scream somewhere that everyone can hear me and no one can mute me. I must write this all down, either by ink, in ones and zeroes, or in blood. I cannot keep this in. The truth does not flow out of me, it breaks itself out of my breast, clawing it’s way to the freedom of the ether. Why do I write? Because I cannot stop, no matter how hard I try.
Another sleepless night, thinking of the people that left my life behind
Another sleepless night, thinking of the people that left my life while I still had to march on. The people who left over ignorance and lack of understanding, the people who left because they made a choice to leave me behind, the people who left because I let them drift away, and the people who are divided by the eternal barrier between this world and the next.
How do I forget them? How do I make their faces leave my vision? How do I fill the holes in my heart they left? How do I live without their love? What do I do with my love for them?
On quiet nights, like this one, they appear in front of me, sitting beside me, leaning on my shoulder, embraced in my arms.
I pick up my phone to make that call I know I shouldn’t make, or that will never be answered. I pick up my phone and see the conversations we had, knowing that every message sent again will never be replied to.
I am never alone, they are always with me. They come to me in a phrase, in the way that the breeze touches my skin, in the way that a love once forged never truly disappears.
So, I spend another night restless, thinking of these long gone loves and connections. I wonder whether they look at the night sky as I do and miss me as I miss them. Was I a blip? Was I important? Will they remember me? Do they hurt like I do?
My life is full of too many memories, too many people loved too deeply, overexposed and overly emotional. I cannot turn it off, this overwhelming desire to connect, I cannot turn it off, this overwhelming fear and pain from abandonment.
I just want them to know. I just want them to know that I miss them. I just want them to know that I miss them and I still love them. I just want them to know that I miss them and I still love them so much it hurts.
Sleep, please take me soon, these longings and desires are too overwhelming. I can only find solace in my nightmares and the constant distraction of other people. To be alone is to remember their absence. Every one of them took a piece of my heart, and there is nothing to fill the holes. Love just bleeds out onto the pavement as I walk at night, wondering where they are. Sleep, please take me soon, there is not enough in me to keep going.
I cannot stop thinking about them with such intensity. I cannot stop thinking about them achingly. I cannot stop thinking about them. I cannot stop thinking. I cannot stop.
Sometimes even the holiest days of days can become routine, and sometimes you need a way to break out of it to really connect with Hashem. Let me give you an idea, a way, to break out of the mundane and really connect.
Even before candle lighting approaches, there is so much work that goes into getting prepared for Shabbat. The late night Thursday night shopping rush, pushing between people in the aisle to find the chili sauce, trying to find the perfectly ripe fruit to serve for dessert, trying to figure out how much chicken to get. Then theres’a the all-day Friday prep. Making sure all of my meat is properly defrosted. So much cutting and dicing. Counting down the minutes as a I fry another batch of schnitzel. So much effort for the day of rest before you can enjoy that moment of calm that eventually hits you sometime Friday night.
Even then, so much of the Sabbath follows the same routine. Eat a meal. Maybe with some guests. Probably eat too much. Hopefully there’s some Torah for the table, but sometimes it’s just a friendly meal between friends. Then there’s going to the synagogue, seeing the same people, making the same small talk and the same jokes. Prayer is almost always the same. Maybe you try to add some extra kavanah into it, or maybe you just try to get through everything. Saturday, it’s the same thing, but maybe with a nap, or maybe reading a book.
It’s all so routine.
If this year of our global pandemic, so much was interrupted in our lives, and this routine is no different. How many other people counted down the days until they could have guests again? Or waited until the synagogues reopened? Or worried about the dangers involved with going back to almost normal? Even now, I still wear a mask when praying inside, and some places want to see my green pass that shows I’m fully vaccinated.
Covid changed everything, but maybe that’s not the worst thing in the world.
One thing that I started to do after all of this happened, when I was barred from going too far from my home and we were forbidden from having guests, was to go outside and just sit. That’s it, just sit outside on the small bench in my landlord’s yard and really think.
It changed something for me.
I’ve been learning a lot of mindfulness exercises as part of my therapy program, and one of them focuses on just really becoming one with your surroundings. You go somewhere and sit (it doesn’t have to be outside but I prefer it), and get into a comfortable position. You practice controlled breathing, where you breathe in through your diaphragm for six seconds, hold for three, and then exhale for six seconds, ending with another three second hold. You do that a few times, and then you just get into a cycle of focused breathing without counting. Slowly, you feel the sensations around your body: what you’re sitting on, the smell in the air, the wind touching your skin, the warmth of the sun. Slowly, you expand your consciousness outwards, and hear the birds, people around you, and all if the movements in your area. Eventually, you try to phase as much of yourself out and let in as much of the world as possible.
Sometimes thoughts come up, and that’s ok. They can be annoying thoughts, thoughts of fear, or just distractions. Just acknowledge them for what they are and let them be. They have no control of you.
You are only in control of yourself and your mindset, and that you are becoming one with everything around you. You are becoming part of G-d through His creations, and you can feel the web that connects every bit of light in the world.
I challenge you this Shabbat or Sunday after church, or whatever day of rest you choose to have, to take a moment to just go outside and try the exercise I described. For me, it makes my Shabbat so much more enjoyable.
Often times, we can get so lost in the routine that is Shabbat or Chag. The meals, synagogue, napping, reading, or just spending time inside. Shabbat is a day of rest, but it’s also a day to connect to Hashem in a way that isn’t possible the rest of the week. Our soul is more revealed, and we are more receptive conduits for holiness on these days. Why spend all of that time cut off from the real world? You’re already cut off from the electronic, so focus on what’s really true and real in the world. Hashem isn’t found just in the synagogues or in our homes, He’s everywhere. Connecting to His creations through meditation and focusing on making yourself truly one with Him and the universe is so spiritually uplifting.
Thank G-d, I live in a land where the air I breathe and the earth I step on are imbued with holiness, so maybe it’s a little bit easier for me. When I feel the air on my skin, I know that this is the air I’m meant to breathe in and surround myself with. I know that when the sun shines on me here, it shines with all of G-d’s grace and compassion. I can truly empty my mind and make myself a vessel to fill with the sounds and presence of all of His creations around me.
Take some time and try, see if it works for you. If not, that’s ok, it’s not for everyone. I just wanted to share something that helps me break up the mundane, even when the day is holy. Let yourselves live in the world, and remember that G- d is everywhere, and man, are his creations amazing.
Every single moment is a gift, a gift that you can never get back, but only remember. Do you want to spend those moments, those free times, your days and nights, your entire life living without experiencing life?
My father recently connected with a few cousins that he had never met before in his entire life. Now, my father is in his sixties; and to me, it seems almost inconceivable to not know and have memories by that time with people so closely related to you. I grew up living close to most of my cousins, for about a decade we all lived together in Houston and the surrounding area. I have so many memories of visiting them, bonding, and exploring the world and our lives together. I remember the crazy stories, the endless games of Monopoly, and the ski trip where my cousins and I played Animal Crossing for hours on a GameCube that ran through a car adapter and a tiny attachable screen while my dad and uncle drove.
He met up with them recently in Dallas for a family reunion (or would it just be a union?), and you can see the family resemblance immediately in the picture he showed me. They grew up not even fifteen minutes apart from each other in a small town in upstate New York; but because of family squabbles they had no control over, they only knew that one another existed out there, but they remained nameless and faceless to each other. My other uncle joked that he would have to take extra-precautions if he ever dated someone from his old hometown, because you never knew if some kind of past animosity hid very real blood relations.
I say all of this because there was one cousin who really wanted to come but couldn’t. Just before the trip, she had been sick, and was later diagnosed with leukemia. I talked to my dad recently, and while he’s had the chance to facetime her and talk over the phone, the prognosis isn’t looking good.
He doesn’t think he’s ever going to get the chance to meet her.
Imagine that, over sixty years of life, six decades worth of memories, lost to what could have been. You could spend a lifetime wondering what the world would have been like if he had known them sooner. What kind of effect would they have had on my dad? Would they have been there for him when he needed help and support? Would their love have added that much more to his life? Would even just a few more happy memories change the way he lives now?
How can you even being to imagine how one decision, or a series of them, could have affected one’s life so fundamentally? How can I one even grasp what is it to have lost so much time because of hatred, or at least indifference.
I recently had a bit of a rough spot. Honestly, it’s been a rough few weeks. I had one night just crying and crying and crying, asking myself if I was wrong, if I was the bad man, if I really was making the world a worse place.
It took a few days, but I am finally back to normal, or at least whatever normal is to me anymore. I can go without thinking about the people that hurt me; and even when they do pop into my head, I can just use the techniques I’ve learned in my outpatient program and just acknowledge them, but then move on.
Why?
Because time is just too precious to waste on the people, things, and events that try to bring you down.
I’m not saying there isn’t an appropriate time for sadness, but just that there’s also an appropriate time for joy; and it’s whenever you can seize it. Life doesn’t have to be a constant feeling of contentment or normalcy, we should strive to find the things in life, big and small, that bring us to that place where it’s nothing but grins from ear to ear. Or, it could be the things that bring us that small feeling of satisfaction, of feeling accomplished, or feeling connected to someone or something bigger than ourselves.
I don’t want to be one of those people that just preaches on and on about how you just need to seize happiness and then suddenly all of your problems go away, that there’s an easy recipe for banishing away the demons. It’s not. What I did, and maybe this can help you too, was go through a long list of pleasurable activities and just check off each one that appealed to me. It could be sitting outside and hearing nature, going to the beach, drawing something, or just grabbing a drink with a friend. Whenever you have free time, just try to do one of those things.
Your depression or whatever is keeping you down is going to make you want to just stay stationary and ruminate, but you have to fight that urge. You have to do something. Just taking that first step is already a victory. Even one minute outside in the sunlight is better than an hour sitting alone in your room hating yourself.
So, when I was hating myself, when I hadn’t been outside for four days (except to walk my dog, which I tried to pawn off to my wife as much as I could), I decided instead of lying in my bed again to just wait for the tears and the sadness to come, I ran. I got out, I went somewhere to check off something on my list.
I went to the nursery and bought plants.
My haul from our local nursery.
When I was kid, I remember helping my mom water her orchids at our old home, the last place I ever called home that wasn’t a place where I paid the rent. She had me plant beautiful rose bushes on the side of house and a tree in the front. I remember the feeling of my hands in the soil, and just feeling so connected to the earth and something bigger than me. I knew that these plants would grow, bloom, and go through the circle of life long after I was out of the picture.
When I was putting in my new plants, I reached my hand into the big bag of soil that I bought and just ran the dirt through my hands. I could feel it’s freshness, it’s vitality; I could feel life running through my fingers.
It was so refreshing. It made me feel alive and good and that I was adding something to this world. I felt like I was taking part in G-d’s creation, and in His plan for us to cultivate and care for this place. I could feel the love in the soil, the same love my mother gave me when I planted with her. It was all flowing through me. Nothing can banish away self-hatred like the feeling of real love and connection, and all it took was making a simple garden.
The fruits (or veggies) of my endeavors
As I write this now, I know that I may never see tomorrow. Rockets fly towards cities in my country every day. Every single moment is a gift, a gift that you can never get back, but only remember. Do you want to spend those moments, those free times, your days and nights, your entire life living without experiencing life?
There will always be things that bring us down, and that’s ok, that’s life, that’s an essential part of the human struggle. The choice we have is in how we react to them. Do you lose yourself in the abyss, as I’ve done countless times (and probably will again in the future), or do you do one small thing to try and get yourself out. Acknowledge the pain, do what is in your power to stop it or fix the situation, but then move on. Don’t let yourself get bogged down in what-ifs, the painful pasts, or your regrets. I spent so many sleepless nights going over and over and over and over and over and over everything I’ve done wrong in my life, every embarrassing moment, and every regret on an endless film reel with my eyes pried open like in A Clockwork Orange. The night before these pictures had been like that, and the night before that too. I hadn’t slept more than 4 hours in two days.
This one small thing saved me from going even further down the drain. A cilantro plant, some celery, a few succulents saved me from more sleepless nights filled with hating myself and wondering if the world would be better without me.
So much time just goes by, and these are trying times to be in. Still, take a moment for yourself to experience something that will bring you even just a little bit of joy. Time only moves forward, and you can never get any of the nights you spent spiraling back to reuse when you feel like it. This could be it. This could be the last day you ever see.
So make it count. Seize something, anything that brings you happiness, and hold onto it like a rope pulling you out of the quicksand of life’s horrors. Don’t waste your time hating people, or waste your time caring about people that hate you. Don’t let an opportunity to connect pass you by because you were afraid, or you held onto someone else’s hatred and anger.
Today is a guarantee, tomorrow isn’t. Live. Just live with whatever joy you can bring yourself. Your memories don’t have to be a film reel of pain and regret, you can make it a scrapbook of good memories. You just need to take the first step.
It’s hard, G-d it can be so hard, but you can do it.
If someone like me can, you can too.
If you need someone to connect to, I’m here.
If you need something to do, find a friend and ask them what they’d like to do with you.
If you need a friend, take the first step in meeting someone new.
If you need the motivation, just look inside.
Like Chaplain said in The Great Dictator, “you, the people have the power…the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.”
Just live for this moment, even if it’s just buying a plant and running some soil though your hands.
Whatever is that makes you happy, that brings you joy, that brings you ecstasy, that brings you anything than pain, do it.
Tomorrow may never come, but if you do one small thing that brings you happiness, at least today will have been worth it.
Good luck, a strong heart, and much love from the holy land.
I just wanted to update y’all on what I’ve been doing since my big shift in how I want this blog to exist and how I want to reach you. I’m trying to stay away from Facebook, other than my Facebook Page for this blog (which you should give a like and a follow to keep up with all my latest posts). You can even follow along on my Instagram for more photos and stories that don’t necessarily need a full on post.
Also, I’ve created a new page on the website for photos that I’ve found particularly significant for me or relate to posts I write; I hope you enjoy them. A lot of the stories I tell you just don’t have images; it’s kind of hard to take a photo of my mind in the throes of madness; but I do occasionally catch a part of life here that’s worth sharing.
Overall, I want this blog to grow to be more than just a place for me to vent and pour out my soul. In a therapy session, I thought of a great metaphor for what I’ve been doing, and how I need to change my approach. For a long time, I’ve just been emptying the vessel that contains all my sorrows and pain and putting it out on these pages. Sometimes I just shatter the whole damn thing and cut myself with the shards to remember what it was like to feel the pain.
There’s a different way though.
In Japan, there’s an art form called Kintsugi, where you take the broken parts of a piece of pottery and fill the cracks with gold. It’s part of a greater philosophy of embracing the beauty in the imperfect, in accepting the the flaws in an object. By bringing together the pieces, you can create something beautiful and unique that could never have existed if the pot had stayed unbroken. You can see each individual part and the role it plays in the whole; whereas the unbroken vessel is uniform, and you cannot see where each piece matters in its own way.
I’m probably oversimplifying an amazingly deep and culturally significant art form, but it really speaks to me. I broke myself when I was in the hospital, and I’ve spent the past six months trying to put the pieces back together. I’ve been trying so hard to make myself into what I was before; but that can never happen. I need to learn to be okay with my flaws, and even find beauty in being different.
This blog is my way of putting back those pieces, of looking at each one and seeing where it fits best. I want to devote more time to figuring out how my life goes forward from here, and I know that this medium has a role to play. I am not just writing for myself, I am writing for you, and I am hoping that you see in me the beauty in how imperfect I am.
I love to write, and this has been an amazing journey so far. I’ve reached thousands of people with these posts, and it amazes me that people care about what I have to say. I’m making all of these changes, making the site look better, adding features, and writing more because I want these posts to be the gold that binds my parts together.
There’ll be more changes ahead, and I’m looking forward to them for the first time in my life. I am afraid of what might happen to me, but I know that if I speak my truth that’s all that matters in the end. If I was gone tomorrow, I’d be proud to know that I at least left this behind. That I have more than words on some website, but that I’ve actually reached you out there, wherever you are in the world.
Keep posted on what’s coming, because I promise you things will only get better from here. Much love from the Holy Land, and here’s to hoping to see you again soon.
Things are going to be different from here on. They’re going to be different for me.
The past seventy-two hours have been a turbulent time. I’ve lost friends, life-long friends, because they believe that I am an agent of my state, and that my state is evil. They believe that this place that I have grown to love is an apartheid state, worthy of international condemnation. They must believe that I am no different than the white Afrikaner of old, living on his vast estate, served by black South Africans, relegated by law to second-class citizenship. They believe that the cities I’ve visited like Efrat, Kfar Etzion, and Hebron are next to modern-day Bantustans, ignoring the existence of the PA and it’s sovereignty within it’s own borders and their international recognition as a state. They believe that my friends that have served in the Israeli Defense Forces, and those that serve and protect me now, are war criminals and perpetrators of genocide. They believe that my heart is a rock, and that I do not cry for the deaths of Palestinians, they believe that my soul is cut off because I will not share in humanity with my fellow Arab citizens, and they must believe that my eyes are blind because I do not disavow my government completely even though I acknowledge, and voted for a party that believes, that things must change.
People hurt me over the past few days. Deeply, intensely, and to my very core. They attacked me on a political level, but more hurtfully on a personal level. They did not stop to ask questions, they only saw and reacted and assumed and let their rage take over anything else. I actually had someone question my own ability to have an opinion because I just wasn’t oppressed enough.
They made me question who I was.
They made me feel like I was a bad person.
It’s a feeling I haven’t felt in a long time, outside of when I know that I’ve made a mistake or an error.
It’s the kind of feeling that makes you want to just give up, to take the last train out; because the earth doesn’t need another bad man.
But I know that I’m not.
I know that I have good in me, that I have love within me, that I believe in righteousness, and that I have capacity to change the world for the better. I have in the past, and I think that one day, once I’m better, I’ll be back to fighting for what is right in the world again.
So I’ve decided to cut off a lot of those sources of negativity because I simply cannot agree with the beliefs that some of these people hold. I cannot believe my state is in the grasps of apartheid when Arabs hold seats in our Knesset, sit on our supreme court, and serve in our armed forces and police. I cannot believe that I am living on occupied land because I know that this is where G-d wants me to be, but it is also where the UN has told me this is my land and continually reaffirmed my right to be here. I cannot believe that I am uncaring or unloving towards Arabs because my life has been saved by Arab nurses who took care of me when I was hospitalized, and that it was an Arab doctor who tried to help my wife and I bring more Jewish children into this world, and because I have had nothing but friendly encounters with every Arab I have met in this country. I wish I could say that I had more Arab friends, and maybe that is one fault you can judge me on; but it is hard when we live in separate places and I barely have the energy or strength to make friends with anyone outside of my outpatient program (which also has Arabs).
I can only say that after two years of life here that this place is more complex, more nuanced, and more inapplicable-to-outside-definitions than anywhere else that I have ever lived. You cannot place me in a box because this a country was built on the idea that no box can contain you. We were founded by a rootless people, ingathered from around the world, trying to make something flourish in the desert.
So what does that have to do with this blog?
It means a few things. It means you’ll hopefully be getting more from me now that this is really my only outlet for expression. It means that I hope you check out the Facebook page for this blog to keep up if that’s how you consume your media. It means that I am going to devote more of myself into this blog, and try to make it more than just the occasional ramblings or musings (I hope you noticed the new layout, it might change as I get used to this platform more).
But it means something more to me.
This is a place where I have control, where I can feel free to say whatever I want; and I’ve never really had that kind of space before. I always had to watch what I said when I was a kid, and even now I have to put on my public face even when I feel the madness calling, or hear the birds cawing, or see faces on on other people. I yearn so much to just be free and live in this beautiful place, and share it with you. So, going forward this is my promise. I will always tell you everything even when it hurts, that I will never hide my truth from you, and that I will always hope that you come along with me for the ride.
Things are going to be different from here on. They’re going to be different for me.
I write this to you as I sit in my apartment’s safe room for the second night in a row, afraid that any moment might bring the siren’s call and the ninety seconds we all have to try and get packed into this sealed-off tiny room to avoid the incoming missiles, and pray that the iron dome or fate saves us from losing our homes, our bodies, or our lives. For the second night in a row I sit with frayed nerves, every sound a possible alert, every clinking plate is a siren, every plane overhead could be a drone, every foot stepped outside is another second less I have of safety if that ninety second window starts closing. I look around me and notice, for the first time, how small this room is, after having tried to jam three adults, three children, and two dogs in it as we wait for the other shoe to drop. I see the blast shields (who would have ever thought I would have said such a real thing in real life) covering the windows, blocking the light out and turning this into a place truly disconnected from the outside world save the device I am typing on now.
If by now you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll make it abundantly clear and tell you exactly what happened to me last night.
The day before yesterday, my landlord’s wife had shown her children how to get inside my apartment from their home and to the safe room in case they weren’t there. If there’s one piece of advice that has stuck with me, it’s this: when the sabras, the natives, start getting worried, that’s when you should get worried.
At about 9:00 p.m. IST yesterday, I experienced my first real rocket attack; siren, running, fear-filled night and all. I was about to take a shower, and was already starting to get undressed. I immediately heard the siren and started throwing on my clothes, knowing that within seconds my landlord’s family was going to be rushing down the stairs to the door that joins our apartment to their home to get into the safe room that I am typing from. I ran into it and saw my terror-stricken wife running towards me as I saw the family from upstairs come through the door. We all ran into the room, my wife yelling that she couldn’t get our dog to go with her. I took a second to calculate whether I had enough time to risk my life to possibly save my dog and I ran out, picked her up, and ran back. We shut the door behind us as the siren was still going off.
Not long afterwards my landlord’s son heard the boom of an explosion far away. It could have been the iron dome itself, the iron dome intercepting the missile, or the missile exploding nearby in an empty area.
We waited and sat trying to stay calm.
It’s crazy to see how children react to situations like this, the mix of excitement, fear, and curiosity.
It’s crazy that children have to grow up like this.
We heard another siren and waited longer. My landlord spoke with his wife who was in the shelter with us, he was away at work in Ramat Gan and also in a shelter.
After about thirty minutes, we all thought it was safe to get out. My apartment was still there, but whatever naivete or innocence I had about rocket attacks was gone.
As so many of my friends have pointed out, this is the first time in over six years since a siren has gone off in Netanya. Many of them joked that this is what makes them Israeli now, part of the collective identity of living life where any place and any time can become a mini war-zone. I thought getting through the hassle at the post office was good enough, but I guess maybe I am a little more Israeli after all of this.
In the moment, all I felt was a feeling of being completely on edge. I was going over everything in my head of what I had in the safe room in case we were trapped here. Did I have enough water? Enough snacks/food for everyone? Did I have food for the dogs? Were my medications here?
About an hour after the attack, all of the adrenaline left my body, and the panic set in. I could feel my heart racing and my chest tightening. Everything in my mind wanted to reject everything, that this couldn’t have just happened, that this wasn’t real. This happens near Gaza. This happens in the south. This happens maybe to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. This doesn’t happen to me. This can’t happen here. I’m safe.
I don’t have the time and patience to tell you how we got to this point, but this article from the Times of Israel does a pretty good job of showing how blocking people from sitting at one of the gates to the Old City of Jerusalem and a real estate case in East Jerusalem led up to this.
The first comment, the very first comment, I got when I posted to social media to tell people that my wife and I were safe after a missile attack was from a family member telling me to get out of there as soon as I could. I told her the same message I would tell the people that sent the rocket careening towards my home:
I am not going anywhere. No one is going to scare me away from my home. No one is going to stop me from being a Jew, living a Jewish life, in a Jewish state, in the Jewish homeland.
I will brave anything to be in this place. I will face every fear I have. I will let my nerves burn with panic and dread, but I will not allow them to make my legs walk anywhere but within the lines that carve out this little place in the desert that we have built up and can call our own.
To those that support Israel, to those that support the idea that terrorism is wrong, to those that believe that democracy and dialogue are always better than war, I ask you to join me in praying for an end to this fighting so that we can face the hard questions of how we make this a better place for everyone. The other side wants to shut down the talks with violence, they want to silence opposition with many masks, talking radical Islam from one side of the mouth while speaking to the left’s identity politics from another (with the latter all too willing to disregard what life would be like under the law of Gaza for them personally).
To those on the fence, I ask you simply to read reliable news and form your own opinion. I am not here to make you a Zionist, I am merely telling you what happened to me, your friend, and what my life is like because of the people a rocket’s reach away from me that want to see me marched into the ocean.
And to those who believe now in BDS, who call Israel an apartheid state, who say the IDF is a war criminal organization, who say that we are killers and murders: unfollow me. You obviously have hardened beliefs that fly in the face of what real life is like, or how history has unfolded. If you cannot see that those statements do not fit in the same world as calling someone who is a proud Israeli, someone who chose to move to this “apartheid” state, a friend, than you need to figure out what is more important. My life was on the line, and the people cheering with you in America might seem nice, but the ones here have their fingers on missile control buttons, and mortar rounds, and incendiary balloons, and anti-tank missiles that are used to kill people just like me.
It could have easily been me.
Maybe I am more Israeli after all of this, but not because I know this new fear. I am more Israeli because I know more where I stand. I stand with my friends. I stand with my brothers and sisters. I stand with my fellow citizens, regardless of religion or background. I stand for peace with security.
I stand (or type) here and say that I am a proud Israeli. No caveats, no apologies, and without reservations. This place is my home, and it will be for the rest of my days. I hope they are long here, and that my death comes surrounded by family and in old age and not by the finger of some terrorist in Gaza; but either way so be it. There is no place I would rather call my home.
Israel will always be where my heart is.
Sending beleaguered love from the Holy Land, hope you send some our way; everybody here could use a little extra these days.
Go out and hug your mom if you can y’all. If you’re too far, do what you can. If they’re with my mom, I have a hug waiting for you.
I almost forgot it was today.
Chalk it up to the day’s stresses, or trying to get by on another day with two hours of sleep, or on living in a place where this is just another day.
I almost forgot today was Mother’s Day.
I’ve forgotten so much about my life, I could fill countless photo albums with blank pages of memories that time, my mind, and the struggle through the two that robbed me of so much of my life.
I’ve forgotten so many holidays, save for the few running jokes in my family. I’ve forgotten what it was like to wake up in my old childhood bed.
I’ve forgotten what it was like to have a childhood home.
And I’ve forgotten so many things about her.
I’ve forgotten what it was like to be around her. I’ve forgotten the smell of her favorite shampoo. I’ve forgotten what it felt like to finally get tall enough that she had to look up to give me a hug.
I’ve forgotten the infectiousness of her laugh.
I’ve forgotten the kindness in her voice.
All I have left are the videos and pictures to remind me of the most important woman in my life.
I spent so many years after her death focusing on what I lost. Thinking about the last words I said to her. Remembering the moment I saw my mother for the last time. The image of going into to the hospital room to see her finally gone is forever burned into my mind. Mother’s Days, birthdays, death anniversaries, all spent remembering what I had lost.
But not this year.
Not anymore.
I will not let myself be a slave to my grief, to my sadness.
She would never have wanted that. She lived life so fully, so in every moment, that she would never expect anything less from me.
I don’t think she would care that I don’t remember her recipe for chicken adobo; I think she would want me to remember how she would give her nights up so that she could help the outcasts and the unwanted in our city get the help they needed. She wouldn’t care if I can’t remember what she got me for sixteenth birthday; she would want me to remember the time I went to on of the roughest neighborhoods in Houston to give her something in the middle of the night, and remember how fearless and joyful she was helping others.
She would want me to remember how proud she was of me, and how much hope she had for me.
She would want me to remember how she told me that she would be happy with whatever I did in life, as long as I was happy (and not selling drugs).
She would want me to remember that she always counted on me when she needed help, because she believed I was someone that could be counted on.
She would want me to remember her not for anything she did for me, but that I gave her the greatest joy in life.
She would want me to remember that I need to live and keep on trying, just like she did when times were hard and we were alone.
So, I make this pledge:
I will remember you mom. I will remember you for more than the care and affection you gave me. I will remember you for more than the lessons you taught me. I will remember you for more than morals you instilled in me.
I will remember you because you loved me so unconditionally that I learned what it means to love someone, something, a cause, a belief, a way of life with every ounce of your body. I will remember you because you made me into the kind of person that can still write these words, that can still fight, that can still try despite everything telling him that he’s going to fail.
I may forget this day, but I will never forget you.
This day will end, but my love for you will span beyond the last of mine.
Always loving you mom.
Go out and hug your mom if you can y’all. If you’re too far, do what you can. If they’re with my mom, I have a hug waiting for you.
Sending love to you mom, and y’all out there around the world, straight from the Holy Land.
I can find something worth living for, something worth giving everything for, instead of just another reason to die.
I am so tired these days, tired beyond any of the words I could ever hope to fill this page with. My bones are exhausted, every muscle is spent, every neuron in my brain is overshot, my soul is in tatters from the constant fight to stay alive and try to make it to the next day. Every night, I languish in an emotional roller coaster that fills the cavity where my heart once resided, now banished to a place where it only occasionally sees the beauties that the light of day illuminates. I lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling, pills blunting but not stopping the blows of every horrible thought you could imagine.
Seeing the loved ones I have lost.
Seeing mothers grieving and screaming over the bodies of their dead children.
Seeing the faces of so many helpless people begging me to intervene, and being so afraid to fail them.
Seeing the things I have done to myself to numb the pain, the things that leave scars on my body and in my mind.
Not seeing an end to all of this pain and suffering.
It all makes me so tired.
I remember once being a man, a man of purpose, a man of action, a man exclaimed, a man proud of his accomplishments, a man thanked, a man blessed, and a man people turned to for help. Now, I all I see in the mirror is whatever shell is left over when that flame, that burning passion, has been snuffed out. I see my face covered in ash, remnants of a life now burned down to dust and embers. What am I supposed to build with this field of cinders? What new edifices can I build with the stumps of once great and towering trees? How will I till this land when all that is left are the vultures that pick over the tattered remnants of my life, the crows that look into my soul and see it lacking, and soil left barren by the salt of endless tear-filled nights?
I wanted to change the world, and I felt like I was on top of it all. I could move mountains with with my words, I could part oceans with my tongue, I could inspire with my passion, I could will the world to change with my mind. How much was madness and how much was me I will never know; these diseases, these diagnoses, these labels are so intertwined with my personality that I will never be able to tell if my hands move because I will it or the demons tell me so.
I am slowly trying to make a sandcastle with these ashes, but the going is hard. Every day, it seems like a new wind comes to blow away what I make, and another day is lost trying to move forward.
But that’s just it, I am always moving foward.
Every day, no matter how much pain I feel, no matter how much I lose connection with reality, no matter how hard I cry, no matter how deep I cut, no matter how much I scream at the birds yelling in my head, I keep on going. I must.
I cannot let this beat me.
I know that I can have a life, a better life, maybe even a glorious one.
I can find something worth living for, something worth giving everything for, instead of just another reason to die.
I know that maybe this moment of clarity will not last, and I know that I will always suffer; but I hope that one day I will learn to live with all of this. I know that I will never control the demons that scream at me to do horrible things, that I will never quell the beasts in my chest that stampede and rob me of sleep; but I know that I can learn to make it a little better. I know that one day, it’s possible that I can live a happier life.
I am so tired of all of this, all of this constant sorrow and suffering.
So I am going to do something about it.
I am going to keep on putting the work in. I will let myself heal. I will get to a place where I can once again help heal others.
I am tired, but I know that one day I will wake up and this will be just another memory.
Tomorrow always comes, and I will do everything to make sure I seize it.
I am locked in this forced recollection, my imagined self is getting dragged into the scene. I am becoming my memory again. I am losing it again. I am losing control.
“Close your eyes and tell me when you’re ready to begin.”
I say ok, close my eyes, and the film starts again.
I’m watching myself. She’s there too, standing where she always does; who she is doesn’t matter, their faces are all the same. She turns to the left, and I take another picture. I am asking questions as I take photographs with my phone, but I don’t hear what I’m saying. I can only see my same actions, over and over and over again. I cannot see my face.
*tap* *tap* *tap* *tap*
She tells me about what happened to her. She tells me the same story I have heard from countless women just like her. I cannot hear her speaking, but I can feel the weight of thousands of words spoken by dozens and dozens of people. I watch myself hide behind the phone taking pictures, hoping my face doesn’t betray my empathy, my shock, all of the emotions coursing through my body wanting to scream out that I am in way above my head. I feel the need to control, but all I see is myself taking more pictures. She lifts her shirt to show another bruise. I get closer to get a better shot.
*tap* *tap* *tap* *tap*
She sits back down in the chair. So many have sat in that chair. Stalin said one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic; I can only say that one sad story is horrible, and that a library of them only brutalizes the soul. The film blurs for a moment as she changes into someone else for just a second, a single frame spliced into the reel. It’s jarring, and it pulls my chair closer towards the screen. I ask more questions I do not remember but feel, while I sit and watch. Another splice. Another inch closer towards the screen and the fourth wall.
He stops tapping on my knees, “Ari come out of the film, open your eyes.”
I hear his voice like an usher asking me to leave the theater, but something makes my mind ignore him. I’m glued to the scene, to the emotions flooding into me as I delve deeper into this archetypal memory from an archive of similar stories. I feel the hand starting to grab my chest, wrap its fingers around my heart and squeeze. I’m starting to forget that this is a film and that I’m in my social worker’s office doing this exercise.
“Ari, Ari, come out of it open your eyes.”
The theater is slipping away and I’m walking into the film. I’m getting sucked in again. I can feel the rage of helplessness washing over me again. I’m fighting to open my eyes, tears starting to pool at the corners of my eyes, but the anger is keeping them locked shut. I am locked in this forced recollection, my imagined self is getting dragged into the scene. I am becoming my memory again. I am losing it again. I am losing control. I am becoming me. I can start to feel the chair turn into the one I once sat in. She is in front of me.
“Ari!”
I open my eyes, but I don’t see where I am. The social workers are in my office, and she is sitting next to them. I cannot tell if I am still watching the film or not. I cannot tell if this is my memory or reality. I cannot tell the difference between the two. Is any of this real, am I still watching the film, or did I disappear in the ether between this world and the one in my head?
“Ari where are you?”
I look around the room and I see the social worker’s decorations and I wonder why they are in my office. I feel like I am neither awake or asleep. For a moment, things almost become black. I don’t know where I am.
“Ari where are you?”
“I…I’m in your office”
“What day is it?”
I check my watch and say, “Monday.”
We run through the secular and Hebrew months, and I am starting to come back to reality. Whatever self I created to watch that film is almost entirely back in my head. She is gone too, banished back to my nightmares and to those moments when someone’s face on the street changes to hers.
They say this is going to help, but that it’s going to get worse until it finally turns for the better. All I know is that last night was the same as the one before: unable to sleep, mind raving, and waking up at 4 am from another nightmare and gasping for air like I’m suffocating.
Three months of this all and I can function, but I’m still living one day at a time. I guess that’s an improvement from not wanting the morning to come, but I’m getting tired of living stuck in this series of sessions and days that blend together and have nothing to differentiate one from the other. People ask me what I do for a living, and I give the half-truth of that I’m between things. The reality is that I live for these sessions. Everything is all too often a blur. I can still feel the cheap cloth of the hospital clothes on my skin, but I’m so far removed from those days and those people.
This is my life. Sessions. Session after session. I just want to live, but she and all of the others keep me up too late at night. My mind won’t stop, no matter how many times I beg and plead just for a little sleep each night.
The next session is next week, same time, same people. I’ll see them all again.
