Living

I wrote a piece here titled “Living” that began with this:

I stopped writing, theorizing, visioning, daydreaming—whatever you’d call Mishkaneer—sometime last summer. My private misery was too much, and all I had the strength for was surviving and struggling to find the solution (praying it would not be the inevitable). Briefly, here is what happened…

The piece went on to describe my experience of marriage and divorce. Writing it was therapeutic, but on second thought I think posting it in such a public forum is unnecessary and perhaps not even appropriate. Anyone who wishes to can talk to me about my experiences. Otherwise, it might just be enough to say that I am divorced, I’ve been through a mountain of pain, I’m grateful to G!d and my friends and family and everyone who helped us get through it, and I pray we all are blessed with the strength to rebuild our lives for a better future. More or less, I suppose that is what I meant when I ended the piece this way:

Looking back, I am impressed by how powerfully marriage acts as a magnet for mythology. In its promise, marriage signifies our highest aspirations. In its failure, it resonates our blackest fears. So much lore and rumor about Aviel’s and my history has been untrue—some pieces very seriously so—I want to just take a megaphone and smash the myths, inspirational and disgusting alike. I have to hope and to beg that none of the mythology about Aviel’s and my past will be taken merely at face value. I would much rather be the target of tough questions than of false assumptions. Any who are troubled or concerned about anything to do with me should afford me the dignity of a chance to understand and to answer. Likewise, no one should presume that because I had one sort of experience with Aviel, anyone else should necessarily have the same kind of experience. She is a special soul, deserving of love and respect.

We must each give each other a fair shake in this life, bringing to every relationship at least as much compassion as judgment. And we should all be blessed with healing and hope for a redemptive future in this tragic, magical Creation.