Who Am I? : Up by My Bootstraps

Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is not the easiest thing in this world to do. Yet, it is possible and it was seems to be a never-ending process. We work on one thing and succeed only to have to turn around and pull ourselves up for another. Constantly, we are working and improving and striving for something. However, when you reach hell, well, you basically don’t have much further to fall. It is time to yank yourself back up to your feet. It is scary. I know. I have been there. I know what it is like to fear the tiny breath of negative wind, because it felt as if it were strong enough to send me careening back into the pits of hell.

People seem to imagine hell as being a fire hole. Actually, hell is more like dead numbing cold. You know you are alive and no matter what you do you can’t feel anything. You can’t laugh. You can’t cry. A smile is something to be forced. Even anger subsides into nothingness. There is nothing. You feel nothing. Nothing matters. Nothing affects you. That is hell. No warmth, no cold. It just exists. Even a depressed of mind is negated. Sleep only comes upon collapsing. There are no dreams. There are no hopes.

For me, I had one flame in the distance. I had my faith in Gd. That was constant. Out of reach and nearly unattainable, but it existed and that was what mattered. There were prayers for things to change. However, really emotionally feeling anything, I was numb. As a person, I did not exist. I went through the motions of life. If was lucky my temper would break through with a gush of icy anger. In my anger, I was a coldhearted bitch. Well, truth be told, I couldn’t be coldhearted because my heart was neither cold, nor did it exist. I seemed to keep it in a box guarded closely. It took it out only when it was safe and before the worthy. There were not many who were.

Now every so often I left the complete oppressive prison of hell. There were moments of humanity. However, for the four years after we gave up our nice home of 14 years, this was my reality. There was no end to the fighting and bickering. To make things worse my grandfather passed away and there was whole big drama over that. My family broke apart to be a bunch of strangers living together. They didn’t know me and frankly, I didn’t want to know them. I kept a dead family together for four years longer than I should have. I should never have tried, yet I did and I try with whatever I had in me. Looking back this seems to me what Gd had in mind for me.

Anyway, you are probably wondering where I am going with this. Well, I pulled myself up by the bootstraps. I went back to work at my beloved library where I was surrounded by people I could trust. I hate to commute, but I wanted to be back where I was wanted. I decided to go back to school. I had finally saved enough to go community college. I took two courses at first, one a History and the other English. In my English class, I met two girls my age. The three of us began to hang out after class. I started to have a life. I still e-mail and talk to the one periodically. She’s now in the navy and very difficult to get a hold of some days.

I made a bold move. I decided I was going to move out. An apartment was offered to me and I jumped at it. I made this decision around Rosh Hashana of that year. My father, who at the time had separated from the family, walked back into our lives. I told my mother I moving and she told me that my father was whisking her and my littlest sister to NJ to live with his sister until they could find a place to live. Instead of moving in around November/December, I moved into my new place October 24th.

I was back in school. I had the job I loved. I had a place of my own to live in. I was hanging out with friends and doing things.

I yanked myself up to where I wanted to be. It felt weird and I was scared. For the first eight or nine months, I slept on an air mattress on the floor. I eventually got a bed when the mattress got a hole in it. I got a queen size canopy bed. I put the sucker together myself. I got curtains for it too. I had fun going through the curtains that ended up on the clearance rack or at oddball stores that take discontinued items. Yes, I admit it was girly, but to me, it was a palace and it was mine.

The second semester, I took karate. Here I met a very good friend of mine. I met her fiancé too. She just didn’t know that he was going to be her fiancé at the time. I had a ball with them. I lost so much weight. I drop nearly forty pounds. In addition to weight loss, I learned how to better protect myself. In addition to that, I was showed off to my friend’s friends and became involved in a much bigger group of people. I now had a community of people to hang out with. The number of people I met exploded. I became friends with a whole bunch of people around the country and frankly, the world.

Now that I had myself in a safe place taking care of myself the best I can, I went searching for a closer connection to Gd. It was very faint most of the time during the previous four years. Other days it was very strong. The day I decided to move out, it was very strong. I felt confident and I knew I wasn’t going to waver. Gd was letting me leave hell. I got a reprieve for meritorious service; at least this is what I envision. I owed it to myself to keep Gd in my life and to find my true connection to him.

A friend invited me to NY for a weekend of Shabbat. Since I was not about ready to go through the subway system alone, I came in early and experienced my first really Shabbat. When I went to shul, when I read the prayers, I found what I was looking for. Being a stubborn child, I refused to admit that I found what I had been looking for simply by putting myself at the right place at the right time, so soon after picking back up my quest. See, I had tried to find that closer connection to Gd before and got nowhere. Here I walked in to shul and began reading. It was weird. I was alive. I was at peace. I knew where I belong. I know every time I am in shul that I am where I belong and I am doing right by the convictions of my heart and honoring the miracles that Gd has given me.

I pulled myself up by my bootstraps. One leg at a time, little by little, I moved forwards and up. It was hard work. It is still hard work. There are days I want nothing more than to cry my heart out. There are days were I feel broken and worthless. Then it passes. Then I remember. I have come a long way in a relatively short amount of time. I also know, I still have a long way to go and I have the rest of my life ahead of me.

Fallen Angel