It's true that Israel is a special place to which I feel deeply connected, and in which I experience a happiness that I don't often get in other places. However, my "sunshine and roses" outlook on Israel is heavily influenced by the fact that I've never been here for longer than six weeks at a stretch, and I'm always here on vacation. In other words, my time in Israel is not "real life." No wonder it's so great!
I am now in the middle of my fifth summer in Israel (4th consecutive), and a few days ago I got smacked in the face by an unexpected visitor--reality--and it came dressed in its usual guises: depression and anxiety. While these emotions are not unusual in my "real life" back at home, I have rarely (never?) experienced them for any significant length of time in Israel. But there they were, undeniably. For a couple of days I moved through my life as if I was viewing the world through a curtain of gray gauze. I was desperately hungry for connection, yet I felt I couldn't connect to anyone. Empty time made me an anxious mess; I felt a compulsive need to fill every minute with any sort of activity, if only it would distract me from feeling lonely and sad...and yet, there were times when all I had the energy to do was lie on my bed and stare at the wall.
If I had been at home, I would have known that all I needed to do was wait it out, and the dark mood would pass. But since I was in ISRAEL, all of these tough emotions were accompanied by "judging": You're not supposed to feel this way in Israel! You're ruining your time here by being unhappy! You can't be happy anywhere! Did these thoughts help? I'll let you guess.
In the middle of my low mood, though, I made a realization: The reason I had access to all these feelings was because Israel was no longer a novelty; rather, it had become more like "real life" and less like some kind of utopia. I understood that the more time I spend in one place, the less realistic it becomes to expect that all of that time is going to be happy time. That isn't because I'm incapable of being happy; it's because when I'm real, my emotions--all of them, not just the "good" ones--make themselves known. In a way, these rough past few days have been a sort of compliment to the State of Israel: "Congratulations, you are now Real Life."
And, in the spirit of being my full, authentic, emotional self in this second home of mine, I used some tried-and-true coping skills to pull myself through: I cried; I took a nap; I opened up to a couple of great one-to-one conversations; I watched the birds; I sat and read in the sunshine...and, wouldn't you know it, the dark mood passed, just like it eventually always does in Real Life.
This experience has reminded me that no place is the "perfect" place, and that the more time I spend in Israel, the less likely it is that it will all be happy time--but that's not bad, it's just authentic. Recovery works the same way: it's not all positivity all the time, and there are unhappy and difficult times even when we're genuinely doing well, because that's how life goes. In the end, I suppose it's a good thing that I finally experienced unhappiness in Israel...it made the place more real to me, and confirmed that even though it's not Utopia, I love it anyway with my whole heart.
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