Category: Parenting

Parenting

Studies show: Sticking a bead up your nose indicates entrepreneurial spirit

Jen

Every family has one.

The child who sticks beads up her nose.

In our family, the child looks like this:

annabel in the yard

Of course, she always has a good reason. In this instance, she wanted a nose ring.

You know, like the one Jasmine has in the Disney makeup tutorial I let her watch 50 times a day?

Which made a lot of sense until I went back and watched that video (while simultaneously criticizing myself for being the kind of mother who allows my 5 year old to watch such junk), and realized that Jasmine doesn’t have a nose ring — nor does any other Disney princess.

Obviously.

So, either she was referring to the Goth makeup tutorial that was recommended to her in the “Related Video” section on YouTube or she just wanted to stick a bead up her nose to see what would happen.

Either way, I still have no idea exactly why she would stick a bead up her nose.

Perhaps, she’s just curious. Perhaps that’s also why she swallowed a penny when she was 4 or why she cut off own hair when she was 3.

Marry her natural curiosity and stubborness with her Israel upbringing, and you got a start-up superstar in the making.

But she also possesses a virtue most entrepreneurs could use a little more of.

Humility.

When she realized last night that the bead was good and gone far up her nostril and no 5 year old digging was going to get that sucker out, what did she do?

She asked for help.

“HELP! There’s a charuz stuck in my nose!” she cried to anyone who would listen. Charuz is the Hebrew word for bead. (Guess who was the one who figured out what she was saying? Score one for the immigrant mother.)

My husband, two sons, and I all gathered around to her to evaluate the situation.

You could see she was scared and wished she had never stuck that bead in her nose in the first place.

But she didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. She just listened.

First my husband looked inside. “I can see the bead,” he told us, silently thanking God for small favors.

“Hold the other side of your nose, and blow,” I told her.

She had never done this before. It was new to her.  Up until now, as much as we’ve tried to teach her how to blow her nose, she’s only been able to sniff in.

She gave it careful consideration, as all four of us showed her how to blow out our own noses, instead of sniffing in.

My husband held her other nostril, and then instructed her, “Now blow!”

She looked at us, seeking our backing and support.

We all smiled expectantly.

Truthfully, what I expected was a trip to the emergency room.

But, she did it!

She blew the sucker out on the first try!

A snotty, but glittery pink bead flew at G-force speed across the room.

We all cheered and danced around her. Siman tov uh Mazal tov!

We kissed her. We hugged her. We congratulated her.

And of course, we listed off again all the appropriate and inappropriate things for inside one’s nose, mouth, or any other orifice. And we emphasized that beads don’t belong in any of them.

For now, at least.

After the incident had passed, and relief had washed over all of us, my daughter came up to me and said, “I was so brave, wasn’t I?”

I hugged her, and agreed. “Yes, you were very brave.”

“You know what was really brave?” I asked her.

“What?” she said.

“Asking for help. Sometimes that’s the scariest thing for someone to do.”

“You’re right, Mommy,” she replied, not necessarily because she agrees, but because in addition to being curious and humble, she is also wise.

She knows that next to “I love you” and “You’re pretty,”  “You’re right” is the answer mommies love most.

Letting Go, Mindfulness, Parenting

Sick with motherhood

Jen

I’m watching my 10 year old son move in and out of a sleep much lighter than I wish; his breath too rapid for my comfort.

He’s disturbed.

So am I.

The muscles in my neck are tight. So are his.

I realize just now my jaw is clenched. His knees move back and forth; the rapid shaking an effort to release his fear and pain.

He’s home sick today.

I’m home sick today.

But his sick is of the variety that comes and goes. And while it seems as if it will never pass — especially when you are in the throes of throwing your insides up — it will, God willing, pass.

But my sick is different.

It’s not viral.

It’s not contagious.

And I can’t be sure it will ever pass.

My sick is a panic turned into a tension turning into an ache.

When my son was little, I remember remarking what a trooper he was when he was sick. The mess was often minimal — even as a toddler he would make it just in time to vomit into the toilet; he’d hardly ever cry after — and his needs were easy to address.

I would ask him, “What do you need?” And he’d say:

More water in my sippy cup.

Some toast with jam.

A new Wiggles video.

He knew he was sick. But he knew he would feel better. We told him so, after all.

But my son is older now. And his simple desire to feel better has turned into grief that the world has inflicted such suffering on him and the anxious worry that he will never feel better again.

“Why me?” my son shouts with a burst of sudden energy.

I don’t know how to help him.

I sit next to him as he finally closes his eyes and he lets me smooth his hair off his forehead and lets his head rest on the back of my palm.

I count the freckles on his right cheek.

1 – 2 – 3 – 8 – 12 … when did he get so many freckles?

I remember we used to count them one-by-one in the bath and I’d point out when there was a new one.

But that was years ago.

Years before the lump that sits in my throat. The lump that will surely turn to tears in

5-4-3-2-1…

My son is older now.

It’s no surprise to me.

I saw it coming.

But still I am sick with motherhood

The kind of motherhood you catch when your child suddenly becomes more than a child and his needs more than a child’s needs.

The kind of sick you feel when you realize that slowly, slowly your power to heal weakens.

And he will soon need to learn how to heal on his own.

Family, Parenting

The woman she used to be

Jen

I’m a woman so I know

what she wants you to remember is

the woman she used to be

the prankster the flirt the gymnast

she wants you

when you look at her

to see the girl in the rain

in braids

invincible

Tho she is mother

she is woman, she is girl

And just before she heard the baby cry she was imagining how she would do her hair for prom

up or down

She is thin and underdeveloped underneath that oversized formula stained tshirt

She is agile and eager behind that tired, uninterested frown

She closes her eyes, smells the bouquet you handed her and remembers

the wedding

She looks up and sees the underside of her mother’s chin

her mother’s grin

kissing her, thanking her for the macrame owl that Troop 422 made for all their mothers

In the mirror she is mother

but in her mind’s eye she is woman

she is a girl

they blend together and

she wants you to remember

like she remembers

the her behind Mother

Letting Go, Love, Mindfulness, Parenting

The gift of a complicated question

Jen

Over the course of one weekend, my 6-year-old asked me two thinking cap questions.

“Is magic real?” and

“Are we rich?”

gazing

I love answering complicated questions. In fact, the conversations which follow these questions rank high on my top ten list of favorite parenting moments.

Why?

Well, obviously, I get really buzzed from the power and responsibility tied up in answering these questions.

Me?

I’m grown up enough to answer such questions?

Me?

You think I know the answers to such questions???

Me?

Are you saying my answers are the right answers?

Me?

Honey, I was hoping you had the answers.

Oh, how I am humbled by these moments, though, as much as I am empowered.

In these moments, I understand how much my answers will shape my son’s thinking.

But in these moments, I also understand how little my answers truly will shape his thinking. My answers, in the long run, will only set him thinking more.

In these moments, I am indebted to him for making me feel – even temporarily – as if I am brilliant, all-knowing, and in control. Simultaneously, though, I am in awe of the complete and utter faith a six-year-old has in his mother, and grateful for the gift he has given me — the simplicity with which I may answer.

When else in our lives are we gifted with such simplicity, such confidence, such love and respect?

Family, Letting Go, Parenting

When we grow up, will I be a lady?

Jen

Today, while driving my kids to the playground in the next community over (the only thing I could motivate to do on this 169th Day of Passover vacation in Israel), I found myself in deep discussion with them about Jesus and parenting.

Two topics I know almost nothing about, but pretend like I do, sometimes.

The conversation began with my realization that today is Easter Sunday.

You wouldn’t know from the look of things around here that Jesus died for our sins in this neck of the woods some 2000 years ago.  This is what it’s like to live in the boonies of the Jewish State.

Easter is just another Sunday in Spring.

I don’t know much about Jesus, and I certainly told at least three partial untruths, unintentionally contributing to the spread of blood libel I’m sure. But it all made for an interesting enough diversion to keep the backseat from being a war zone for five minutes.

If that’s not a Passover mitzvah, I don’t know what is.

It’s been a long, tough school break.

One that only looks perfect in pictures.

annie on rope swing

zombie oliver

tobey cafe

The last 16 days is the longest I’ve been alone with my kids since I went back to work full-time two years ago.

And I haven’t even been alone that whole time. I’ve been lucky enough to have my mother in town visiting; my in-laws taking over for a day or two; and my husband around for the Seder and the weekends.

In the days leading up to the long break, I mentally prepared. I even convinced myself all this time alone with them was going to be kinda fun. I must have forgotten the agony of those long holiday vacations back in America when I was a stay-at-home or work-at-home mom. And I completely forgot a basic life lesson:

16 days together with anyone — no matter who, no matter how much you like them — is TOO LONG AND ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU HATE YOURSELF, AND EVERYONE ELSE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ADORABLY CUTE BABIES AND BUNNIES.

No, this vacation wasn’t perfect, and made me doubt at times my parenting, my career, and our decision to move to Israel.

But it wasn’t without its moments. Teaching moments. Learning moments. Loving moments.

Like the moment today after we finished talking about Jesus and the Jews.

We had just entered the gated community with the cool playground.

I openly admired the houses there. One in particular with solar panels across the roof, a fat wooden tree house in the shaded backyard, and a porch swing gently embraced by flowering vines.

“Wow. Look at that house. I want to live there when I grow up,” I said aloud mindlessly, still in my imaginary future.

“But, Mommy, you are already grown up,” stated the middle son, who depending on the day can be both the wise, the simple, and the son who did not know how to ask.

“True,” I said. “But, the part they don’t tell you in school, is that you are always growing up. That’s basically, I’m afraid, your life’s work.”

Groans and denials from the back seat as we arrived at the playground.

“Not true!”

“What are you talking about?

“Grownups get to decide everything!”

(After 169 days together, you could say that a few punishments have been handed out and threats thrown around.)

“You think they teach parenting at school?” I pressed my kids, cranking my neck around to give them my most serious, yet loving advice face. “Every single decision I make when I’m with you guys is a potential HUGE mistake, or at the very least a big, fat lesson for me to learn for next time. I’m growing up the same as you! Living, learning, figuring stuff out.”

I park the car.

Silence.

And then they open the doors and run off to swing from a rope tied to a tree.

So much for teaching moments.

I start to say something to them — to shout at them from the open window.

“Did you hear me?!

“Don’t run!”

“Be careful!”

“Take turns!”

But I can’t quite get out the words.

I’m too busy growing up.

Living in Community, Mindfulness, Parenting

Community isn’t just a funny show on the TV

Jen

Living in community is hard.

It’s also engrossing, fulfilling, heartwarming, and at times, heart-breaking.

More than anything, living in community is a sure-fire way to be present at any given moment to your self-worth, your self-esteem, and self-sufficiency.

Living on top of each other — which is what you do when you live on a small kibbutz, at least — means you are every day faced with fitting in, belonging, needing, giving, taking, believing, doubting, judging, questioning, accepting, committing, avoiding.

Your heart just sits there in the front seat of a roller coaster ride.

Some days trekking slowly slowly to the top — excitement building. You can hardly breathe. Other days, a swift ride to the very bottom. You can hardly breathe.

But in a different kind of way.

Who chooses this life? This togetherness?

Who forfeits the privacy, the independence, the safe separate-ness of living in a large city or a large suburb with long driveways and electric garage door openers?

There are days when I want to run away to that large city; hide inside a dark suburban garage.

You can’t do that on kibbutz.

You can’t avoid the neighbor who insulted you.

Or the friend who disappointed you.

Or the child who bullied yours.

You can certainly try.

But as you cross paths time and again, each time reminded of the injury, the insult, the suffering, you have a choice to make.

Be with the suffering,

Or heal.

There’s no avoiding. Not for long, anyway.

There’s just choosing to suffer or choosing to heal.

Living in community is hard.

But no harder than life.

Living here, in community, is like living in a petri dish of evolution. Of social innovation. Of personal development.

Of love and compassion.

For yourself and for your neighbors.

And it’s hard some days.

Other days, though, miracles happen .. right before your very eyes.

 

Family, Love, Mindfulness, Parenting

My life in pictures

Jen

When I was a girl, I imagined my life a movie.

In fact, I have a few distinct memories of moments in which I felt very present to the experience of being watched.

This makes me sound crazy. Paranoid. Egotistical.

I know.

But, nonetheless, every once in a while I’d be walking down the street with a friend or engaged in a song and dance with my brother, and suddenly sense an observer.

I’d look around. Nobody was there.

Over time, I resolved this to be an inexplicable sensation I labeled, “My life in pictures.”

Now, as an observant adult, as a mindful lifer, as a humbled human being awed by her children, terrified by her own mortality…I find I am a member of the audience, instead; with one greasy hand inside the popcorn box and the other gripping the side of the aisle seat wondering…

How will it all end?

Meanwhile, I’m also the excited, but cautious cinematographer.

Struck breathless by extraordinarily poignant scenes

moti penina piano

Obsessed with capturing light

lights tangled

and angles

boys in the grass

Wondering all the time if other people can see what I see…

If other people feel the love and the loss inside a half-eaten cupcake

cupcake

Or the extraordinary sadness of a broken plate

plate

I sometimes watch my husband chase the children and know that once there was someone who watched me.

Someone is still watching.

A critic, a fan, or just a curious spectator of my life in pictures.

Family, Letting Go, Mindfulness, Parenting, Religion

Purim lots

Jen

My husband and I fell in love and got married quicker than you can say “Who moved my cheese?”

Almost as quickly, if not quicker, we got pregnant with our first kid.

We didn’t take the time to have the important parenting conversations like,

“Do you mind if our kids eat candy for breakfast?”

“Is it important that our kids go to college? Or is GED good enough?”

“Is it okay if our son marries his cousin?”

Somehow, we’ve made it this far without divorcing or selling one of our children on the black market.

Eventually, we had a lot of those crucial conversations, and luckily see eye-to-eye on most parenting issues.

Our values line up.

When we disagree, I can usually persuade him.  Sometimes it takes a few years…Like the time he refused to switch from Heinz ketchup to the organic Whole Foods brand.

Three years later the organic brand was in our fridge door.

(Now, in Israel, we’re back to Heinz. It’s a specialty item, which in Hebrew means “practically organic.”)

There was this one time, however, when my husband was right in the first place.

We were talking about our kids as teenagers and how comfortable we would feel if one of them decided to dress “Goth.”

My husband was insistent that we would be flexible about piercings and black lipstick and long leather jackets. He said we needed to foster their sense of creativity and self expression.

I could see his point, though I was hesitant and reluctant.

Truth is: I don’t want my kid to be the kid teachers and other kids are afraid of.

Also, I’ve never been good at not being scared of people who dress scary.

I don’t want to be scared of my own kid.

Our kids are still too young to be expressing themselves with their outerwear just yet, but one day a year, my oldest son wants to show off his dark side.

Purim.

The other kids come to the bus stop in homemade Mordechai costumes, or walking clever references to pop culture.

But my kid?

Year after year, he wants to scare the bejeezus out of you.

scary purim costume

My husband usually goes along with it.

But this year, concerning the above nail-impaled zombie mask, my husband was himself reluctant.

At first, he considering forbidding my son to wear the mask. (It was a gift from Saba and Savta.)

It’s not appropriate, my husband told me. Purim is not Halloween.

He’s right.

Or at least maybe he’s right.

Who am I to know what’s Purim appropriate? I’m still a Jew in progress. Still an immigrant mom. Still figuring out how not to embarrass myself on a daily basis.

But what I do know —  what I’m sure of — is that my husband was right when we first had that conversation 8 or 9 years ago.

We absolutely, positively want our children to feel free to express themselves.

As long as they aren’t hurting themselves, or others, we want them to be comfortable showing the world who they are.

To dance.

To sing.

To frolic.

To feast.

To be free.

This is Purim spirit, I’m sure of it.

This much I know.

Family, Love, Making Friends, Parenting

When life is full, shep nachas

Jen

I’ve been lamenting lately a perceived lack of time to write new blog posts.

An idea will pop into my head, for instance, but in between the idea and the publish button is a perceived lack of opportunity to sit and transform the idea into a story.

Too busy at work. Too tired at home. No time in between.

Life is full.

Can you hear my voice?

How does it sound?

“Life is full,” she said with a sigh.

“Life is full,” she whispered as she let her head fall heavily onto the pillow.

“Life is full,” she grumbled as she hastily prepared dinner for three hungry, irritable children.

“Life is full,” she thought to herself as she watched her husband chase her daughter around the grassy field.

When I put aside my frustration and my lament, I can acknowledge that I am so very lucky that — blog posts or not —

Life is full.

*  *  *

So while I only have three minutes today in between this and that, I will use it to shep a little Aliyah nachas.

Purim at Givat El

That little guy in the top hat is my middle son.

He’s six years old.

When we arrived in Israel two years ago, he didn’t speak a word of Hebrew.  He was cute, but shy.

Lovable, but sensitive.

January 2011, at Gan on Kibbutz Hannaton
January 2011, at Gan on Kibbutz Hannaton

Little.

Breakable.

For the first two weeks at Gan, he didn’t speak a word to anyone.

In fact, one day he pretended he was blind.

Literally.

He walked around with his eyes closed all day.

The kids ran up to me at pickup time to ask me if it was true, “Is he blind?”

No, I told them. Just shy. Nervous.

When I asked him later why he pretended to be blind, he told me he didn’t want anyone to notice him.

It took him only three weeks to turn those confused children into his best friends.

He’s older now. Adjusted. Still cute, and a bit shy. Still sensitive, yes, but…

More Israeli.

When it comes to song and dance — this kid is Israeli through and through.

It doesn’t matter what the holiday, what the occasion, this kid’s got the soul and spirit of a sabra.

Purim in Givat Ela ceremony

This morning, my heart burst with joy and pride as his “Kitah Aleph” (first grade) class performed a Purim presentation for the rest of the school and for parents.

Yup: The middle guy in the top hat memorized his line in Hebrew, recited it flawlessly in front of the entire school, and sung and danced his little heart out.

Everyone noticed him.

Especially me.

My life is full.

And lucky for me it takes no time at all to shep nachas.

Just a moment to change your tune.

Family, Letting Go, Living in Community, Love, Making Friends, Mindfulness, Parenting, Uncategorized

I wasn’t always like this

Jen

A well-thought out middle name is an underused tool.

My middle name should be “in progress.”

Jen In Progress.

In my case, In Progress would remind me to be compassionate, to others, but mostly to myself.

Mother In Progress

Wife In Progress

Friend In Progress

It would remind me that I will always be a novice no matter how expert I might become at a skill or a task.

Employee In Progress

Coworker In Progress

Marketing Goddess In Progress

It would remind me that self-expression is a gift wrapped in complicated responsibility

Writer In Progress

Coach In Progress

Community leader In Progress

And that how I define myself is as temporary as it is permanent

Jew In Progress

Israeli In Progress

Kibbutznik In Progress

If my middle name was In Progress, every time I made a serious decision, committed myself to a long term action plan, said Yes or said No, I would acknowledge that I am doing so with the purest of intentions as well as the greatest of uncertainties.

That I am always “in progress” means that I may always forgive myself.  I may always start over. I may always assume that tomorrow will be better.

Even when it’s not.

In Progress reminds me to be in motion. To repair that which I may have broken. To rediscover the gratitude I may have misplaced. To reignite the passion I have let wane.

To progress.

To journey.

To grow.

Community, Living in Community, Making Friends, Mindfulness, Parenting

Other people’s garbage

Jen

What I am about to say doesn’t apply to everyone.

It doesn’t apply to the immigrant family just arrived from Darfur.

It doesn’t apply to the disabled veteran living in a box on the corner.

But it DOES apply to anyone with enough money and sustenance to afford a computer, an IPhone, a tablet.

What I am about to say applies to those of us lucky enough to be in the middle or upper class.

What I am about to say applies to the family who pays 150 NIS to send their kid to basketball class, and another 500 NIS on the uniform.

What I am about to say applies to the family who owns a car, a three-bedroom home.

What I am about to say applies to the family who takes their kids on vacation to Eilat.

What I am about to say applies to some of my friends and neighbors.

What I am about to say is going to piss you off.

Your kid disgusts me.

Yes, your kid.

The 13-year-old who just threw a plastic cup under the bushes next to the preschool without thinking twice.

He disgusts me.

Sure, it’s only for a moment. A passing moment.

He’s only a kid after all.

Until it happens again.

Until the 6-year-old, the one who is in the same class as my son, rips the wrapper off his popsicle and drops it onto the street without worrying for a second about getting in trouble.

Disgust.

Again.

Today was not the first time I’ve seen a young person throw trash on the ground here in my community; here in Israel.

Today was not the first time I saw your kid throw trash on the ground as if the ground was going to take care of it.

As if the ground serves as his garbage can,

The same ground that braced your child’s fall when he was just learning to walk.

The same ground that nourishes the wildflowers you use as a beautiful background for family photos.

The same ground that you pay taxes to tend to.

Your kid just trashed that ground.

Now, you might think me harsh or judgmental.

You might think me smug.

You might spend the next two weeks watching my children like a hawk to see if they ever once throw trash on the ground.

They might.

And if they do, I hope that you will call to them, gently but not so gently scold them, insist they pick their garbage off the ground and place it in the proper receptacle.

Do what I didn’t just do.

Teach them.

I missed an opportunity. I let your kid walk away.

I let my ego get in the way — too afraid that I wouldn’t use the right words in Hebrew, I waited til he walked away and I picked up the cup myself.

And then I shook my head. At him. At you. At me.

It’s easy to make excuses.

My excuse is language.

My excuse is fear.

What is yours?

The truth is: There are no excuses for our children throwing garbage on the ground.

Not children who go to basketball, and play Wii, and own their own phones.

Not children who eat organic tomatoes or gluten-free pita.

Not children who are raised on hikes along the Jordan River; on a deep love for this land.

There are no excuses.

plastic on the ground

Is this the land we're fighting over?

Plastic bag dots the green

Love, Parenting, Relationships

Dear 38-year-old Me

Jen

Dear Jen:

It’s a trend in the last decade or so for writers or celebrities to pen letters to their younger, seemingly more innocent and vulnerable selves.

While sometimes introspective and poignant, this practice is a waste of time.

Letters lead only to wistful and wishful thinking.

Energy is better spent focusing on inventing a time travel machine.  Time travel is an action plan.

The thing is, I have trouble understanding the directions blockersto my 6-year-old’s “Blockers” board game, let alone the mind-bending quantum physics required to figure out how time travel would work.

The closest we writers will likely get to inventing a time travel machine is live tweeting a Quantum Leap marathon.

And so, we write letters.

Reading and writing letters are the next best thing to time travel.

I learned this last week as I was looking at old emails from the past 10 years.

Why was I looking at old emails from the past 10 years?

Because today I celebrate 10 years of being a mother.

I was looking for something in particular in my old sent letters.

A file called, “Tobey Grows.”

When I was pregnant with Tobey, I was a complete lunatic.

My husband told me so at the time, but I didn’t believe him. I thought he was just being an insensitive asshole.

But time traveling back into 2002 and reading the journal I kept both during my pregnancy and during Tobey’s first year of life, I see what a complete and utter crazy, control freak I was.

Don’t get me wrong: I was also really cute. Hot even. (Man, my hair will never be that blonde again. Damn, hormones.)

12/2003, Tucson, Arizona
12/2003, Tucson, Arizona

But I was convinced that I was so powerful…and yet often felt completely and utterly powerless.

I thought that by maintaining control over my world, over my child’s world, that I could somehow protect him. Keep him safe. Turn him into the healthiest, strongest human being ever poised to be President of the United States of America.

And at the same time, as I read these journal entries and think back to that younger, blonder time, I realize how terrified I was.

How in a moment powerful transformed into powerless.

A fall from a swing. A slip in the bath. A bug bite. An allergic reaction.

That’s all it took to turn me into a powerless heap of Jello.

My life as a mother hasn’t changed all that much.  Powerful still turns into powerless in an instant.

But now, I know that powerful is an illusion.

I know that control is an illusion.

I know that I am not in control.

I’m not the driver.

I’m the navigator, sometimes.

I’m the backseat driver, a lot.

I’m the guy who writes the instructions manual.

I’m the girl upstairs who edits the manual three years later.

I’m the old lady who laughs at the manual years later when cars learn how to drive themselves.

*   *   *   *

This is not an easy understanding to retain, dear 38-year-old Me.

I’m still very susceptible to believing I am in control.

That I can keep him safe.

That I can protect him from this scary world.

That he will make it…thanks to me.

I’m still a bit of a complete lunatic. And I still think my husband is being a complete asshole when he tells me so.

But, for the record, he’s usually right.

The only difference now, 10 years later, is I can recognize my craziness a lot quicker.

And acknowledge it. And forgive it.

I’m a lot more forgiving of myself now.

It took me 10 years to let compassion for myself in.

And while my hair is not as blonde, my shoulders are a lot lighter than they were 10 years ago when I first became a mother.

2012, Israel
2012, Israel

And the compassion I have for myself spreads to those around me…

To my husband.

To my own mother.

To my mother-in-law.

To my children.

To my friends.

To my enemies.

To strangers.

*   *   *   *

Dear 38-year-old Me:

Since opening my heart to my son 10 years ago, I have become so much more vulnerable to pain, to fear.

And somehow, strangely, during that same period of time I’ve managed to let go of pain, of fear.

A bit.

And let in love — a bit more.

I’m writing this letter to you today to remind you of that.

So that tomorrow, when fear creeps in, when control takes over, you remember that it’s all an illusion.

You remember that your husband is right.

You’re acting like a complete lunatic.

Love is more powerful than fear.

Breathe.

Love.

And breathe again.

Love,

38-year-old Me