A friend and I were talking about a struggle we grappled with when our younger sisters got engaged. The brain is a pattern-finding machine. It always wants to find a reason for why things happen. So when you fully expected to be the one to get engaged first, your brain wants to know why you weren’t. And it starts to …
I hadn’t been following the Mishpacha serial Stand By, but this Shabbos I picked up a back-issue Family First and read Miriam Pascal Cohen’s follow-up piece, about the way our community views single women. Did you read it? I find it sooo satisfying and validating when women share their experiences without mincing words. Some of the issues pointedly addressed in …
This post has been in the works forever. I’ve written about other hard stuff — rejection, loneliness, and ambiguous loss — but not enough about heartbreak. I have to admit that before I experienced heartbreak, it seemed mysterious and romantic to me: imagine having had a relationship that was “real” enough to matter when it ended.
Something undeniable: I find it easier to read secular books/articles about dating and being single than I do anything frum on the same topics. It’s like a sensitivity I’ve developed over the past few years; shidduchim-talk pushes my buttons. Instead, more generic encouragement and advice is easier to integrate and helps me feel supported. I’m not sure why this is, …
When it came time to book my flight to New Orleans, I told my supervisor, “It’s too early! Something will come up between now and my trip!” She laughed, because what could possibly change in four months? 😉 Well, my friend got engaged…and her wedding date coincided with the conference. It was pretty clear that I had to keep my …
Liminal space is a term to describe the place we occupy during a transition, between one place and another. I think of this term often when I think about dating, especially in our system where life can take on a frozen, suspended feeling when you begin dating someone. You’re not available, you’re not committed, you’re just…in between somewhere. And being …
Because we know that “Can you send me your resume?” only sounds like an innocent question…
A few months ago I read Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, by Vivek Murthy, and I’m still thinking about it. Highly recommend! The book describes the damaging effects of loneliness and the importance of social connection. Every day at work I speak with people who are isolated from social supports and let …
How do you feel about asking people for help? Last year before my thirtieth birthday, I decided to organize a group of women to do hafrashas challah as a zechus for me. I had read in Rising: The Book of Challah, by Rochie Pinson, of a segulah to have 43 women do hafrashas challah as a zechus for a …
In the early days of shidduchim, when friends and classmates got married, it felt awkward and made me feel insecure to see where they were at. The chasm between single me and married them seemed ridiculously vast, and only widened further with the arrival of their first baby or two, often in short order. I felt anxious to catch up …
