How Wonderful it must be...

To be born to the right parents, into a family of yechus within a community where you are respected and liked. Where your children can attend yeshivah and you can afford tuition. HOw wonderful to be invited to simchas and when you are ill,to be asked if there is anything you need. How wonderful when you can trust people to be no more or less than they present themselves so you know who you are talking to, friends with and can make amends when needed. How wonderful to be inside the human race, the Jewish race, in a community with leadership untouched by scandal, proud and kosher in every psak helping maintain the right path in every place. Reading tehillim each morning, it seems that only a few generations after Sinai and leaving Egypt that the spiritual deterioration had already begun. Reading the prayers of King David running for his life, begging for protection from G-d, hiding and praying that one day they will all pay for the pain, suffering and believing the lies rumored about him, not believing he was a man of G-d and each thing he did was preordained. I read Asaph, who is very difficult to read because he so grieved at the condition of the Jewish people and himself. The descriptions he writes of his body shriveled as a wine skin, his bones dry as dust, parched and groaning, his tears soaking the bedclothes...being forced to drink 'a flask of tears' or given vinegar to drink by their captors. Here we are thousands of years later with the same laments, the same isolation from the rest of the world and for others isolated from almost everyone around them. We are told to reacch out. In all my life through training and experiencing rejection that hardest thing for me is to ask for anything, the few times I do ask I get hammered. As noted elsewhere Jewish agencies have lost so much funding they are laying off staff, cutting back programs and so social care programs are practicaly none existent. An agency woman almost yelled at me when I said I moved to PA, alone pretty much to make my way, she asked why I was living outside the well known and more insular Jewish community where I would have a network of people around me. People dont network around you without reason. I worked for 25 years and people network to benefit their own agendas and promote their own goals, if you fit into that scheme, welcome aboard. I cant fix the past and cannot fathom reaching out to strangers to create a future, so I am alone wth 2 cats with a boulder that sits on my chest making even a breath, difficult. I force myself to wash dishes because I cant face them in the morning. The kitchen is not conducive to any serious cooking, almost no counter space, any no exhaust fan so anything in or on top of oven smells up the apt for hours. THe movers somehow did not pack the box with my expensive jaquard curtains that could cover the entire front window. They left so much behind, like it was hefker, tney had to leave and make other stops on the way back, just wanted to get it all over with. They brought a van too small and then blamed me for not packing the right way. I can count on one hand the wholesome complete meals I've cooked since arriving. And those are usually made when the kids plan to come for dinner, otherwise its a deli sandwhich of turkey, or something as boringly simple. Food is nauseating now, there is no pleasure in it. The one good thing is I cannot shop much here as its hard to walk to and from the market, the market is huge and that's alot more walking until reaching home and dragging bags up the stairs. I think I found a laundromat not far but dot want to risk goint there alone, getting lost with a basket of laundry. People say, Oh I will take you to wash, let me know...but I cant knock on some working persons door and ask to be driven to wash my clothes, who does that? The laundry I had picked up last week was returned almost dry with dryer sheets clearly not used for me, floating among the clothes and left me wondering when i smelled eerything if they even went through a wash cycle or just were tossed in the dryer,folded and repackaging. Thinking of New York, its easy to dismiss the quarter century of work because it was so grueling, years of eating sh**t on almost no money, living in rooms with strangers, being a target for jokes by male grad students who invited me over for philo study one night and asked me to bring a pizza for everyone. I stop and buy a large pie and knock. They are all sitting naked from the waist down reading Aristotle. I guess I was supposed to shriek and run out but I sat down and tried participating in the group study, which wasnt the plan. So after a half hour of silence while they sat naked reading, I got the point and left. Why would you do that to someone? Dont ever ask me again what will you do with all this time now? Because my skin is raw, my bones as well are dry as dust from grief and being ina crowd and completely alone. Its like being born with a mark and you cant see it but everyone else does. I dont like being the clown or rachmunus, so I stay away, avoid people altogether, the pain of trying to exchange words that will lead to something longer term is too much. 3 woman gave me their names and numbers...all goyim and I bring myself to call any of them. I dont do bars or sit and drink. You know if you dont have these things, good parents, friendships, human connections in place early on, you never have them. I went to work and my first effort in my new job in the mid-80s was to look around and see who I could invite out for dinner or a movie. A very helpful Black woman in IT was helping me set up our database and showing me how to use it. I called her and asked if she was free to have dinner. She kind of snickered and whe nI asked about seeing a movie, she looked at me sideways. "Who are you to ask me to go anywhere, what's wrong you dont have friends?" Actually no, I recently escaped from Crown Heights, lost custody of my children and after 13 years isolated without TV or much of anything, the world seems more daunting than when I left it in '73. I seem to vacillate between a feeling of such black despair and at the same time cannot mention these things to anyone for fear of being locked away. I dont trust my own children to protect me,feeling they would be the first ones to suggest a cold room and restraints until common sense returns and the demons are at bay. Children born in the right way, with the right people who know the right rituals and blessings, who welcome a child into a Jewish community not a world of chaos or mixed marriage, these are the people who will live to see grandchildren and Moshiach. I dont know whether the rest of us will be welcome to join in the community at that point, but I understand so well why Veronica sat silent until age 17 at Maimonides the summer I took care of her. Some of us have a gift of being brain disrupted by mental disease that removes us physically from the world andits horros. Other of us retain sanity and even intelligence and see and hear everything as if we are reliving a nightmare or punishment from another existence. There is no rhyme or reason to my life, no reaons to be disliked, scorned.The daily seder I put into place makes the rest of the day more profoundly painful. You cant say much of a anything these days, express despair and wanting to leave it all behind and there's always some asshole who suddenly cries out, call Samaritans, call 911 to pick her up and then you lose all right to even your darkest moments, you become physical as well as mentally a prisoner of war. You will live they say, you will take meds and learn who wonderful life is and it never is, its progreasinly more horrible with each lonely year coming and going. I watch TV only to hear the voices of other humans, most of what is on is so stupid as to boggle the mind, who spend money producing such garbage? I want to bake, but everyone stopped eating sugar,white flour. I as feeling poor calico Puss at 8am and she suddenly looked up and over at another year. A small pug was growling thru the fence and the owner was watching me place a dish of food for the cat, a cat not mine, but a cat here every day for breakfast and a bedtime meal. She stood there and when I waved, she turned and pulled the leash. I asked the upstairs friendly youngs woman to watch my cats for 2-3 days to avoid botheing the kids. I didnt give her a date when she said, Oh I'm leaving for Colorado and boarding my dog, sorry. But I hadnt given her any dates, she leaving for a short trip, I guess do this was something to involved or beneath her. It took all my front teeth out to even leave her a note and speak with her but the reponse was what I expected, but ha hoped maybe it would work out. She has a dog and understands animals need care whe they need it, not when you're in the mood. My life ended when I could no longer become pregnant due to fibroid and had emergency surgery. There was no reaosn to live, if a woman cant procreate, what else is she for? Men look for sex with woman half their age, I was already 40 an a mother of 5, my life was over. WRite a book? about my entree into Chabad and departure? I left 5 children in the community and hoped to G-d they would not be punished and find shidduchim worthy of marriage. Maybe I just need to get this surgery done and over with, to heal from so much pain doing the smallest chore or walks. Right now the best and safest place is bed with a night light, the doors locked and a book to read before sleep.