Last night I had a dream, that I found the man I love. He looked a bit younger than me, but I did not know by how many years. In eight days time, I will turn 35 years old and in my dream I was already 35. As I approach my 35th birthday I am both celebrating and grieving.

On one hand I am grieving the person I thought I would be by 35. Had you asked me 20 years ago what my identity would look like, I would have responded a wife, a mom, a PhD, a homeowner and all of those dreams were specific. I would be the mom and wife that juggled at home with work and synagogue. My children would be active in sports and the arts, I would have conducted research and written books, both in-between seeing clients. My home would be not too big, but not too small with a butterfly garden and a herbs garden. That woman does not exist in me. Maybe she exists somewhere for someone else, but I am not her. And there is a grief in not fulfilling those dreams.

On the other hand I am celebrating the woman I am. As I approach 35 years old, my hair has began to grey, but it’s a brilliant silver. It’s not a lot (I have soooo much hair), but the silver is there in the front of my hairline as if to tell me the best is yet to come. As I’ve grown in age, I have grown as a person, I have became a little more patient and kinder. I may not have a PhD, but I am working on my master’s degree in program that I thought I only dreamed to exist. Finally as I approach 35 years old, I am making healthy decisions that my soul and body agree with. MY body, mind and soul are working in unison and that is a first.

Yes, there is a lot to celebrate.

Yet my dream shook me. Here I was in the honeymoon stage of a relationship with someone I knew to be younger and we discussed our mutual desire for a family. As the dream progressed, I learned he was only 21 years old. 14 years younger than me. My heart sank, because that is a large age gap, and being in my mid thirties, I feel ready to settle down almost now, but I couldn’t imagine that would be the same for him. The dream ended while I was wondering how to proceed. This man, while young, felt right to me, but time, the social construct that rules our lives reminded me my clock is ticking.

As I approach 35 years old, I have began to research freezing my eggs. The process is very expensive, I don’t know that it is a process I will be going though. Though I grieve the woman I was not to be, I do not cling to that grief. There is a chance I will never be a wife or a mom, and that is something I am just trying to accept.

With Love,

E.R.A.

Unwanting

Extending my hand, I reached for you,

“come darling, let’s go dance- naked in the rain.”

Your eyebrow raised while you tried to determine how to respond

No was all you said.

Undeterred and hand still extended

“Darling, come dance naked in the rain, you’ll find so much joy.”

With a look that flattened you claimed you do not want joy.

With my eyes closed and my back on my mat

The tears escaped the corners of my eyes

You do not want joy?…

Do you not want air?

Do you fear joy or fear that you are undeserving?

Is it that you feel undeserving and so to protect yourself you do not desire joy?

So many questions went through my mind

But darling, the one thing that sticks-

If you do not want joy

Then you do not want me.

Not wanting joy, is a tragedy.

With Love,

E.R.A.

Faith? Cue the Nervous Laughter

faith
/fāTH/noun
1.complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

Voltaire tells us “Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.” Sounds lovely and perhaps the beauty of faith is the reason I’m always intrigued by individuals who have faith they openly discuss. Often times I’ll find myself engaged in a discussion with a person about their beliefs and I find that their faith is a beautiful thing, even if I completely disagree with what they are saying.

I’m not so strong on the faith front. Martin Luther King, Jr shared that “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” This quote alone causes me a bit of discomfort and panic. Maybe you’ll take the first step, but me, I’m refusing to. I need to know where we are going, how many stairs there are, are the stairs steep or shallow, why are we taking the stairs, is there an elevator we can use instead, is this journey necessary, etc. Clearly, I’m a joy to behold in any unknown situation and my therapist probably needs to charge me double.

If I manage to take that first step or the first couple steps without any of my questions being answered, I’ll hover for a moment as my fear takes over and then I’ll rush back down to my perceived safety. Yet, I’d like to have faith. I am that person that does believe in a larger power and I do occasionally pray for signs, but then if the sign shows, I wonder if I prayed wrong and if the sign doesn’t show, then maybe the universe wasn’t listening or maybe I again prayed wrong.

Now if someone said the above to me, I’d point out there is not a wrong way to pray and to trust the signs or lack thereof. For me trust comes hard. My foundation for trusting others was damaged years ago and I’ve never been sure how to rebuild it. Compounding that difficulty is that I was inadvertently, or maybe purposefully depending on your viewpoint, taught not to trust myself. I’m not sure, but maybe the only way to have stronger faith is to practice trust, not only with others, but with myself. Perhaps that needs to be the first step, really beginning to trust myself. If there is one thing I’ve recently learned it’s that I’m not crazy and my intuition serves me quite well. So maybe, just maybe, I’m ready for some good ole fashioned faith.

With love,

E.R.A.

The Timeline of Fear

Six months ago, if you asked me what in life I feared, I would have responded in one of two ways. The first option, and admittedly most prevalent way I would have answered would be a scoff coupled with an aggressively smug “Not a single damn thing.” (Did you just roll your eyes? Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure my therapist did at least internally roll her eyes when I responded like that to her.) The second option would have depended on who you were, but it would have be a silent, thoughtful pause followed by a puzzled, but also indifferent “I can’t think of anything I’m afraid of.”

About three and a half months ago had you repeated that question to me, or even if you found yourself asking it for the first time, you still would get one of two responses. Option one: please see above’s option one. Three and a half months ago that was still a very real response for me. If I knew you or was feeling kind of vulnerable, I could quietly reply that I was afraid of not living my dreams… Or something that alluded to that.

Are you wondering my age because I specified three and a half months? The half is important, but I promise you I’m significantly older than 11 years old. Don’t judge, you’ll understand soon enough why that distinction is there.

Repeat the question to me again about two months ago and the only response available at that time would be a panicked, potentially screamed through tears “OHMIGAWD! EVERYTHING!” Absolutely frightening I know, because I lived it and that was my reality.

Now if you’re asking me that question today, the answer is delivered much calmer. It’s an unequivocal, “It seems like too much to list, so I’m actively trying to establish what is actually on the list.” At least I didn’t yell or cry while giving my answer this time.

Why is my fear evolving along this timeline? What provoked this evolution? Cue the universe giving me a shove in the direction I’ve needed to go, by putting my path set to a straight up collusion course with Mister AN three months ago (told ya that distinction mattered.) Mister AN is a giant of a person (and personality, for that matter) and he was supposed to teach me some situational awareness, instead what happened was I walked into the classroom only to come face to face with this beast of a man. He sauntered over to me, looked me square in the eyes and said “Yeah sweetie, you think you’re big, bad and tough? You think you’ve seen shit? You think you know what rough feels like? Darlin’, I’m going to flip your world upside down. I’m going to wreck you. Everything you thought you knew? Ha. Baby, when I’m done, you won’t even know your name.”

Little side note here- While that most certainly is an accurate description of what has occurred, he did NOT say any of that. For starters, we were at work and saying all that would have been inappropriate. No seriously, you can’t talk like that at work. This isn’t the fucking wild west. And secondly, he’s British. He totally would have pronounced the “g” in darlin’.

Mister AN, in short, has been the most destructive wrecking ball I’ve ever encountered. A single week of his acquaintance and my walls were destroyed. I begged the universe for help, and it laughed, said “hold my beer”, gave some British bloke a permit to have at it with my mind, heart and soul.

Perhaps I sound a little ungrateful here. Rest assured, I most certainly am not. I even wrote Mister AN a thank you e-mail. Sure I was a bottle and a half of red wine in when I wrote it, but my gratitude had been weighing on my heart and needed to be shared with him. Who cares that I didn’t perfectly articulate my thoughts? The sentiment was clear and that is what counts.

I say all of this to highlight why I’m starting this blog. I need to write. Not writing, is like holding my breath. Yes, I journal. I write short stories and poems too, but I missed blogging. A long time ago I stopped blogging out of fear. I was so afraid my family would read what I write and they wouldn’t approve, but I can’t live like that anymore. I must write and I must share. I have to be vulnerable, open and honest.

My life absolutely depends upon it.