Once upon a time, I wanted to write a book about shidduchim, and I thought I’d structure it around my hero’s journey. Because the narrative arc was so evident to me. I had started out in life innocently enough, then hit an unexpected snag, which had led me onto a journey where I had all sorts of interesting experiences and important breakthroughs, and I became a new person and learned a lot along the way, and then the clouds parted and my prince rode up on a white horse. I used to think that my story was going to make sense like this. I used to think it was going to be a story with a degree of generalizability, because it was coherent and even archetypal.
And on some level of course it makes Sense. To Someone. Not to me. Because if this was a story that made sense to me, happily ever after would have happened about three dozen plot twists ago. It would have happened when I started therapy, or started therapy again, or went back to school, or moved, or moved again, or after a trip to Eretz Yisroel, or after a major humiliation or dark night of suffering — one of the hundreds. It would have happened. It would have happened after I said, yes, I will date a person who ____ (was not my ideal dream picture in some way). It would have happened after I said I would date the person with a child. With two children. With two teenagers. Who live with him. It would have happened after I said I would move to Eretz Yisroel, to Europe, to South Africa. If this was a story that made sense, it would have happened.
One of the greatest challenges in my life right now is this feeling of having lost the plot. Previously, I usually had specific tasks that had to be taken care of (like changing career paths, finding a new place to live, addressing challenges in relationships etc.). I no longer have that clarity. It’s been a kind of eerie feeling that has persisted throughout this year. A story without a plot. I don’t quite know how to move forward from here?
https://www.all-worthwhile.com/the-empty-pot/
YOU are the real flower.
🤍
Came back to reread this because: YES.
I dislike it when people who find their happily-ever-afters storify their ending. “I reached a place of deep acceptance, I surrendered, I davened like never before, I changed, I truly believed, I hit rock bottom — and then the yeshua came.”
What’s more likely is that life is cyclical — we all have times of great acceptance/calm and also times of struggle and turbulence. But retroactively, we seek patterns. We seek patterns because if we can make sense of it, we can replicate it, and if we can replicate it, we can control it. Or so we think.
We’ve all davened, done segulos, surrendered, accepted, believed, changed, hit rock bottom, and then did it all over again.
The yeshua WILL come. I firmly believe that. But when it comes, it will be because Hashem willed it and for no other reason.
A hundred percent!! Yes, I think only people in our situation can really and truly relate to how un-controllable this is. It is not in our control! No matter how much other people’s “stories” make “sense” to them! This is the hardest for me. To really really let go of trying to make sense of this and just to go along, as you describe, with the cycle.
Tangentially, have you read https://mishpacha.com/the-41st-day/?
Yes, my sister shared this with me! Exactly – my G-d is the G-d of the 41st day. He is there even though nothing that works for other people seems to work for me!