The Unlived Life

It is officially my last full day in Israel (for now, I keep reminding myself).  Tomorrow morning I have to get on a plane and leave one home, the place where my soul lives, and go to another home, the place where I actually live and have lived for my entire life.  There are people and places in both homes that I love dearly, but I think this actually makes the transition harder, not easier.  Transitions...I hate them...and this one is a doozy.

I hadn't planned to write another blog post until I got home, but I've been thinking about a source I read on Tisha B'Av as part of a shiur on alienation, exile, and redemption.  Full disclosure:  this shiur was in the middle of the afternoon on Tisha B'Av, and due to my caffeine and glucose deficit, I *might* have dozed of a teeny bit.  Consequently, I am not exactly sure what the broader context was for this source...but I think it stands well on its own.  It comes from the book, Missing Out, by the Jewish psychotherapist and essayist Adam Phillips.  In this book, Phillips explores the concept that we all have two lives:  our actual lives, and the lives we wish we had.  He writes:

"Our unlived lives--the lives we live in fantasy, the wished-for lives--are often more important to us than our so-called lived lives...What we fantasize about, what we long for, are the experiences, the things and the people that are absent...We learn to live somewhere between the lives we have and the lives we would like...There is always what will turn out to be the life we led, and the life that accompanied it, the parallel life (or lives) that never actually happened...the risks untaken and the opportunities avoided or unprovided.  We refer to them as our unlived lives because somewhere we believe that they were open to us; but for some reason they were not possible.  And what was not possible all too easily becomes the story of our lives."

Boom.

When I read this, it felt like an indictment.  It felt as though Phillips had peered into my brain and seen the thoughts that I bury in there and try to avoid thinking about.  Lately, my mind has been churning around the gap between my "unlived life" and my "lived life."  I am keenly aware that I am heading back to a life that has many strengths--practicality, predictability, security, comfort--but that also falls short, in some ways, of what I wish I could have for myself. This has been brewing in my mind lately not because I am naive enough to think that moving to Israel would be the gateway to living my fantasy life.  It's  because the people I am connected to in Israel never fail to remind me that the things they want for me--connection, love, family, community, learning--are actually the things I deeply want for myself but usually try to convince myself that I don't need.

In a way, sensing the gap between my lived and unlived lives is a step in the right direction.  When I was engaged in the struggle with my eating disorder, I didn't have a fantasy life.  I couldn't see beyond where I was to imagine what could be.  I hated my life, but I felt no sense of agency and didn't believe I had the power to make it any better.  In recovery, I do have the ability to visualize what I really want.  I also understand that whether or not I end up actually living that life is up to me. The sense of possibility is exciting but comes with the weight of being responsible for making it happen.

At the end of the shiur, the lecturer left us with this question to ask ourselves:

"How can I bridge the gap between the life I an preoccupied with in my mind, and the life I'm actually living?"

That is the question I'm wrestling with as I prepare to leave Israel and reenter my "real life."  I don't know the answer, but I do know that actively seeking one is the next step for me in my process.  I feel lucky to be in a place where I am able to envision more for myself and believe that it is possible.  I've worked hard to get to this point, and now it's time for me to push ahead.

Thank you to everyone in my "Israeli family" who has reminded me to keep my eyes on the prize of a wholly fulfilling, nourishing life.  B"H I will make some progress toward that this year, and I'll report back to you next summer!