The Pushover

Over the last few weeks, as I've congratulated friend after friend on their engagement, I've pondered the idea of personal gain. What brings people to achieve their highest goals? What does it mean to "have it all" and who decides who actually has it?

I have a good friend who did not get a job as a student cantor this year. As a result of wanting to be sensitive and allow this friend to have a feeling of equality and importance, I let her take many of the opportunities I wanted for myself. I selflessly allowed her to be class representative on our student government (even when another classmate decided she too wanted the position and forced my friend to share her position) and then backed away from a shot at interning in our summer program in Israel this summer because she and her fiance wanted to go for it. I wanted both of those things, and because I wanted to do what I thought was the kindest thing to do for her, I backed off.

I was a total idiot.

This friend is engaged. She has the time to take extra classes and do yoga and see her family on the weekends when she doesn't work. She has everything that I am currently missing from my life, and instead of being happy with my decisions to give her said opportunities, I only feel resentment. Especially when I know she will have everything that I currently have (in addition to the aforementioned bonuses) when she applies for jobs for the coming year.

Instead of being a martyr, I was a pushover. For that, I feel like the ultimate idiot.

What is it that led me to make these decisions that put others before myself? Why did I allow feelings of guilt (when, in fact, I did nothing wrong in the first place) to let my friend have these things I desperately want?

What else am I allowing myself to push away, either for the sake of others or for the sake of other opportunities?

I've been feeling very stretched by work and school lately, in a way that doesn't allow me to make room for the other important things in my life. I spent 5 wonderful days with amazing friends in California, consistently checking my Blackberry as not to disconnect completely from my professional obligations. I took time and attention away from people who love me in order to answer silly emails about the Purim schpiel and the choir I'm trying to create for the temple. In the end, they noticed. And they weren't happy about it.

How much can I push my personal life away for my professional life?

How often can I allow guilt to push me to make even the tiniest decisions that affect my life in any capacity?

Is this part of the reason I haven't been able to find love, the one thing I'm aching for more than anything else right now? Or is it an excuse for the other reasons why I push love away?

I want to invite love in to my life, along with the right amounts of opportunity. I want to feel satisfied so I can push away feelings of guilt and resentment towards people I care about. I want to usher happiness into my soul and obtain the things I've always dreamed I'd someday find--the things that have nothing to do with becoming a cantor or losing weight.

I want to feel as though the work I do and the people I have in my life are equal in comparison to everyone else's so I can put the scale away once and for all.

Good goals for 2010.

***

I want to be able to talk to my friends again. I want to talk to them about how it hurts to be alone, surrounded by people in love. I want to talk to them about how I've realized so deeply that I don't want to be alone anymore. I want to admit that I miss the way things were before everyone I knew was coupled up, when I could talk about missing a certain someone and they would understand because they were there too.

I want to tell them that it feels strange complaining about my lack of love life when they are supposed to be relishing in the love they've committed their lives to. How isolating and wrong it feels to not want to talk to your friends for fear of lovey-dovey crap or conversations about wedding colors. How every time I hear an engagement story or see a shower invite my heart sinks a little more. How selfish I feel for feeling this way at all.

This loneliness is an odd place to be in right now. I'm no stranger to feeling alone, but I'm used to being on my own surrounded by other lonely people who know the drill. Now it feels like no one gets it anymore, and no one ever will again.

The Biggest Loser

I recently came across this article about The Biggest Loser in the NY Times. As someone who hates the show for a myriad of reasons, I wanted to share it tonight as the world was introduced the the newest Biggest Loser.

Hey people, why don't you try losing weight the healthy way? I have no sympathy for your endless workouts and dehydration. If you want to make yourself sick to be thin, go ahead...but I won't cry for you and I won't watch as you do it.

What do you all think?

Another engagement.

That makes 4 friends getting engaged within a 2 week period.

That's a lot of 'mazal tovs' and 'congratulations' and 'I'm so happy for you!'s That's a lot of engagement stories and squealing and ring showing and wedding talk.

And, for those of us who are single and wish we weren't, that's a lot of feeling sorry for ourselves.

I joke on my gchat status that friend's engagements are part happiness, part wanting to drink myself into a coma. As my friends have become engaged, I find that the happiness fades away and the desire to drink myself silly increases and increases. Not because I'm not thrilled that my friends have found the love most of us yearn for. Not even because I'm jealous and want everything they have to be for myself.

It's because every friend I've had who's ever gotten engaged, I've lost. I lose them to the "we only want to hang out with other couples" club. I lose them because a 3rd wheel is awkward for everyone, whether or not the status applies to them.

They tend to keep me around throughout the engagement process, where I am expected to squeal alongside every decision the bride makes. Once they're married, it's bye-bye boring single girl. They don't intend to drop me, and most of them make sincere claims that they never will, but regardless, it always happens.

They are another reminder of how alone I really am in this world when I ache not to be. They are the ones who tell me "someone wonderful is coming your way, I just know it" and expect me to go around thinking that just because they say it it will actually happen. In actuality, that statement only brings to light the fact that while it's happening for everyone else, it isn't happening for me. It also feels like their excuse for dropping me like a bad habit--like their blind faith makes up for the fact that once they're married, I'm outta the picture.

I know it's all me and it has nothing to do with them. I have absolutely no idea how to push my own issues aside and just be happy for them. I wish like hell that I could do that. I also wish I could be comfortable envisioning a world where it is just me, no husband or boyfriend. Right now the thought of being alone forever is too scary to face.

Please don't respond to this post with "you'll find him eventually" or "I'll always be here, even when I get married." Those really aren't the kinds of things I want to be hearing right now. If you want to tell me "I'll meet you at the bar, shots of tequila in hand," I'll be your friend for life.

HELP

Oh, readers.

I need to start over. Rededicate my life to healthy eating, exercise, weight loss, and overall personal health and well-being.

It's been a long time since I've felt driven to be here, writing in this space. Partly because I thought very sincerely that I was okay, partly because I knew all along that I wasn't. Denial is a bitch.

I don't know what's going on with me this semester--I'm not sure if it's the fact that I've been working like a madwoman or coping with stress by eating, drinking and doing all the wrong things--but it's been impossible to be the Tracy I want to be.

The Tracy I've been for the last 2 years.

I so desperately want to find that place again where I was doing all the right things. I was busy and stressed in Israel, yet I found the time to chop veggies and exercise on my living room floor. Maybe it was my community, both in the HUC world and at Weight Watchers that kept me so committed and focused. Maybe it was the excitement of Israel and a new life and the next 5 years that guided me in the right direction.

I miss that girl who spent her summers exercising at least 1 hour a day. I miss the sweat and tears and endorphins that come with good exercise. I miss making an ass out of myself at Zumba and fighting like hell with my brother to make sure he was home from work in time for me to make it to class.

I miss writing here and having a small, wonderful community of loyal readers who supported my every step, even if I was just bitching about something petty.

How do I make time to be healthy in the midst of being a full time student and working 2 jobs?

How do I stay connected to ME when it feels like I spend my days doing things for everyone else?

How do I find that girl who was so determined to accomplish this dream that she'd turn a blind eye to pizza, falafel, ice cream without a second thought?

I miss that me.

I miss losing weight and feeling good about myself.

I miss feeling like I'm accomplishing something, especially because I know I have so much more I want to accomplish.

I need you, readers, in what feels like the most important way I've ever needed you. I need you to pull the food out of my hands and kitchen, to force me to exercise, to yell at me to keep going because this is not over yet. If any of you are still out there, please help.

The thought of going back to where I was 2.5 years ago scares the shit out of me.

At Peace

It's been a really long time since I last posted.

Yes, I'm just getting past the craziest time of a Jewish clergy person's year. The High Holy Days take up a HUGE amount of time and energy and there isn't much room for anything else. That said, it's not the real reason I haven't posted.

I haven't abandoned my good habits, either. In fact, I lost 2 pounds during the month of September, which included a practicum, a first pulpit visit, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. '

It's strange that for the first time in a long time, I'm feeling very at peace with myself and my body. I haven't had time or energy to stop and think about my eating or exercise or personal junk, and I'm strangely OK with that. I really haven't missed blogging because there hasn't been anything extraordinary to blog about.

Maybe this sense of peace is a turning point, a huge moment of progress, or a natural part of the self-exploration process--whatever it is, I don't really care. I'm comfy in this place, and I haven't been comfy in a long time, or, well...ever.

I guess my time away is/was just some time to dwell in that comfy place, a place I like to be right now. Maybe I'll stay for awhile...or maybe I won't.

The only reason I'm even posting at all is because I think this happy place is worthy of journaling for future reference. It's a good thing.

We Are Not Alone

Yesterday, during my school's annual Kallah (a welcome back retreat, always held at a camp in beautiful upstate NY), one of my favorite professors talked on a panel about self-care. There, she admitted something that shocked many of us: she has issues with food.

This woman is a widely known cantor, teacher, and composer of Jewish music. She is married to a rabbi and together they share a shul, a home and 3 beautiful children. Always put together and on the ball, she is as talented a community organizer as she is a musician.

Never in a million years would I have guessed she had issues with eating.

She didn't go into details about her issues, but if I had to guess, I'd venture to say that she fits onto the opposite end of the spectrum as I. Instead of dealing with eating too much food, I'm assuming she struggles to allow herself to eat enough. She's been pencil thin as long as I've known her, and I've often wondered how she managed to maintain her beautiful figure after giving birth 3 times.

I've felt a connection to this professor for as long as I've known her--even in my audition, when we were literally strangers. There was something in her eyes that just told me our stories were somehow going to intersect, that she was going to be one of those people who are so much more than just a teacher. Until yesterday, I thought it was merely our shared love of music and Judaism that brought us together.

While I've never experienced anorexia or bulimia, I've often felt the ties between those who undereat and those who overeat. It's a matter of agonizing over every bite of food that goes near your mouth. It's a matter of feeling ugly, judged, hated by everyone around you. It's a matter of seeing yourself as completely different than you actually are. It's a matter of using food--whether eating too much or too little--as a way of controlling the chaotic world around you. It's a matter of finding comfort inside of a world that feels safe even when you know it isn't.

Today, as I was leaving breakfast to head out for a walk by a beautiful babbling stream, I bumped into this professor. I thanked her for her candor and sensitivity in sharing a snippet of her story with us. I told her that it made me--someone with my own food issues--feel good to know that I wasn't alone. I mentioned that I felt an even closer bond with her for telling us about this. We got to talking about how sometimes it is sharing our FAULTS with our communities that sometimes allows us to be the best cantors we can be. I shared with her that I've always believed our congregants like to see that their clergy are NORMAL people who make mistakes and bad choices from time to time. Though we've chosen to be role models for our communities, we are still everyday people--our congregants like to see that just like them, we struggle with everyday life issues, too. It brings a certain level of humility to a profession that is sometimes seen as overly dramatic or egotistical. She admitted that until our conversation, she'd never thought about it that way, and that I was right. It was nice to think that my words stirred her brilliant brain just a little bit.

It's kind of amazing how at the same time as I chose to open up about myself to my community, this wonderful woman chose to open up about herself, too. Maybe the Universe is trying to tell me that this I'm doing the right thing at the right time. As I open up about myself, I become more aware and accepting about the struggles in the lives of those around me.

It is at times like these where I am 100% sure that God exists, that there is something so much more powerful than science that brings our souls together.

A Slideshow

It really is incredible everytime I see it for myself. I don't want to belabor the point of my last post, but I think this time line of pictures speaks for itself.

It's not just one person, or 2 people, but 4 (!!) different people.

One year before leaving for Israel:


One week after arriving in Israel:


My 26th birthday, one month after returning from Israel:


My 27th birthday, one month after the conclusion of year 2 of cantorial school: