I have found it difficult to write since Oct. 7. Some things take a long time to digest. This is taking a very, very long time for me to digest and to put into any words at all.
Although there have been many points of light and moments of joy, it feels like the world first went dark when Ely passed away, and has been getting darker ever since. From May 2019 until February 2020, when I was in the acute phases of fresh grief, what gave me some degree of comfort was my family and my community.
And then Covid hit. Deep loneliness turned into deep loneliness plus isolation. Searching for ways to find meaning and to get out into the world, I decided to go back to school to start a new career – one which I believe will be truly fulfilling.
And so started a new phase. A phase of distraction. Distracted by the intense workload, by trying to run a household, be there for my children and grandchildren, and single-handedly tackle the many regular nuisances that come up in life (broken AC, car tests, etc.), I lost touch with myself to a large degree. Yes, there were individual moments of depth, of clarity, of connectedness. But they were vastly outweighed by the ocean of “things to do.”
And then Oct. 7 happened. It has been difficult to process, even more difficult to connect to my own experience during this time, and yet even more difficult to directly think about and experience the pain. The pain of all of the people I know personally who have suffered directly, and the pain of all the people I don’t know but are still part of my family of Am Yisrael.
So now, almost a year later, I am sitting down to think and to write.
What am I feeling? How am I coping? What are my children going through? How is it that I continue learning for my degree, despite the sometimes-mundane tasks, despite the fact that I feel that my inner growth is (temporarily I hope) a bit stunted at the moment, despite the fact that I do not have the time to devote to chesed projects or to the war effort?
In my head, I am taking the long view. It is my hope and prayer that my training will eventually contribute, in some small way, to the healing that is so desperately needed. I also maintain the hope and belief that my ability to grow and learn in a deep, Jewish way, to connect to G-d, will return with full force once I step fully back into that arena.
But mostly, I offer a deep deep prayer that Hashem envelope us, all of us, with His love. I don’t know about you, but I could really use a Hug.