Endure

I've FINALLY started reading Dara Horn's People Love Dead Jews (which should be on every curriculum everywhere) and she mentions Sholom Aleichem's Tevye the Milkman (also a "fun" read).

Her point is that Jewish-themed novels don't contain the typical "ephiphany" that other novels expect. For instance, Tevye experiences horrific hardship, but stays the same. "He endures," she says. 

After Ma died, my sister and I started talking. A lot. We were in this unfamiliar milieu, and we were stumbling through it together. We did have a number of epiphanies between us . . . and a number of conversational threads that go nowhere. 

One topic is the mistaken belief that hardship = betterment. Meaning, that if a person has gone through pain, then they "must" also be kinder, more empathetic, more generous. 

Or . . . that struggle merely strengthens their selfishness. 

Or . . . they simply stay the same. 

When Ma got sick, the one word on my mind was "endure." To get through it. To not fall apart, because I can't fall apart right now. There was no thought of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" (not true, btw) It was survival. I don't need to be stronger or better on the other side. I just need to be strong enough right now. 

I have known many Holocaust survivors in my time, and I think it is a mistake that they are always viewed in context of "the war." That they were the people they were because of "the war." That was certainly my childish perspective.

But they were people like any other. Maybe the war changed them. Maybe it didn't.

And, as Dara Horn says, there is something to be said for enduring. Jews endure. We stay the same, for the most part, over the centuries and persecutions. 

Enduring is enough.   

In Case You Needed Reminding—Cause I Did

Wow. It's been a while. But hey, Pesach prep is FUN, right? (Demented laughter.) In all seriousness, I do the bare minimum, no deep cleaning anything, and I'm all for being checked into a sanitarium to have pity on my poor nerves. 

So, let's get into whatever bugaboo is . . . bugging me now. 

I have cousins who live across the world. Not close cousins, second cousins, or something, maybe, but close enough that we're friends on social media. The mother is my relative, and she lives a lifestyle very different from mine.

Her feed is . . . stunning. Stylish. Glamorous. She's as slender as a rake. I don't think I've seen her wearing the same ensemble twice. She's constantly at bars with her friends for someone's birthday, her tanned arm raising a champagne glass. There are the magnificent views from a magnificent home, and I still don't know if it's her abode or an AirBNB. Her kids are beautiful and talented. 

Despite the fact that I've posted repeatedly that social media cannot be trusted, it's very hard to distrust what's right in front of you. I don't have an imagination—I can't write fiction—so I fall for it. That's why I don't follow anyone, usually, who claims to have a wonderful life—because I can't prove that they are human like the rest of us. 

But I have to follow my cousin, obviously, and I fell for it. 

Then one night, I was scrolling through her feed to find a specific photo to show my father. And then I saw it, a comment a friend of hers left on yet another gushy birthday post: 

"Happy Birthday! You've had a tough couple of years, so I wish you have a much better year to come." 

*Needle scratch*

Come say what now?

It's always disorienting as you mentally spin a 180. 

The bombardment of fabulosity still continues. But now I see it with a little more context. 

We are all human, and none of us live perfect lives.