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Not "amazing" as in, best writing I've ever seen, but "amazing" as in, Oh my G-d, this book understands me. I feel held by this book.
The plot lines of Glennon's life and my life don't really have much in common, but the subtexts sure do. Though I can't relate to being a wife and mother, I absolutely can relate to being mired in self-destruction and having to claw oneself out, only to discover that, Hey, adulting is hard. Life is hard. But life is also beautiful.
In one essay, Glennon writes about how we all live our lives searching for something. We each have an "unquenchable thirst," what author Anne Lamott calls our "God-sized hole." The struggle of life is trying to find things to fill this hole. Some people choose, perhaps obviously, to fill it with G-d. Other people fill it with work or relationships. And still other people, like Glennon and I, fill it with eating disorders and addiction. It all goes to the same purpose: feeling full. It's just that some people seek fullness from the wrong things.
When I think back to my eating disorder years, the word that first comes to mind is, hunger. There was physical hunger for sure, but there was also a deeper, more agonizing emotional hunger. I could satisfy my physical hunger, but the emotional hunger was never, ever satisfied. It just kept burning, and the hole kept growing, and I kept trying to fill it with more of the same things that weren't working: more starving, more exercising, more studying. In recovery, I've had to find different hole-fillers. My favorites are: work, nature, reading, writing, family, and friends. Those work much better. For me, recovery has been about finding positive hole-fillers, and using them regularly.
I don't think it's any coincidence that I became religious soon after letting go of my eating disorder. I had a huge hole to fill, and observant Judaism is a great hole-filler. It has given me structure and rules, a context within which to meet people, and a basis from which to define my values. And, it has given me a deeper connection to G-d, one of my greatest comforts (and challenges). I have known for a long time that my attraction to the religious life isn't purely a desire to live a "holy life"--it's a desire to fill the hole, albeit with something meaningful and nourishing. I don't think that's such a bad thing.
To an extent, it has worked, though I can't honestly say that Judaism and G-d fill me completely. They don't, though sometimes I feel like they should. I daven every day, I observe Shabbat, I keep kosher, I say dozens of brachot daily, and G-d and I have a chat every night before bed. It's soulful and lovely. But here's the thing: the hole is still there. I am still hungry, still seeking. You'd think that G-d would perfectly fill a "God-sized hole," but, at least in my case, it hasn't really worked out that way. And I think it's because, with very rare exceptions, we need other people. A person cannot subsist on G-d alone. And so when I feel hungry these days, in spite of the davening and the chatting with Hashem, I have a more honest assessment of what I need: more connection and more belonging. That is my work right now in recovery--getting myself those things.
Glennon explains it this way:
"Some people of faith swear that their God-shaped hole was filled when they found God, or Jesus, or meditation, or whatever else. I believe them, but that's not been my experience. My experience has been that even with God, life is hard. It's hard just because it's hard being holey."
I couldn't agree more.
And what I've learned from Glennon through her writing is that everyone is holey. We all are. While our instinct might be to stay quiet about our holes, we really should be doing the opposite, because being holey is something we can connect over. I know that when my friends come to me with their holes, when they say, I'm so lonely, or, I don't feel like I'm doing anything meaningful with my time, etc., I feel honored to meet them in their vulnerability, AND I feel energized because those holes are things we can talk about. Connection is a beautiful byproduct of our emptiness.
So if you, too, ever feel like you have a hunger that will never be satisfied, know that you're not alone. It's God-sized, which explains why it feels so big. And we all have one, even the people who hide it well. The secret is that the more we give voice to it, the more we use it to connect to nourishing people and life practices, the more it fills. Little by little.
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