Growing Confidence

Jumping right in, I’m not quite sure where to begin.

I’ve been in the middle of chaos for over a month now. May and June are always terribly busy for me. Too many birthdays and occasions. This year I even had two nieces and one nephew graduate from their perspective schools. Oy!

Unfortunately, this has left little room in my brain for musings with the maelstrom I’ve been foolishly, aimlessly dog-paddling in for weeks now.

Now, none of this is all bad, mind you. In fact, I think it all to be rather good. (Well, except my father going to the hospital for a stay, but that’s classified.) Only it leaves me with an emptiness, an ache of something missing.

You. This. Writing.

Some days, most days, I wish I could just turn off the “world” – the day job, the schedules, the responsibilities, the commitments, the relationships – and hide away where it’s only me, a pen, and paper tucked away in a hidden corner of the world; dreaming, breathing, being.

I haven’t even had much time to read much less think. Also abysmal.

It is this which I believe to be my greatest challenge: fighting to be. Me.

Of course, the struggle has gotten easier, my skills honed and trained after years of battles. Only there are still moments of plight when I must arise to the occasional challenge against me, of striving to bring this Self forward and giving it to the world, no matter the cost; no longer hidden away or masked by the façades of societal demands or expectations.

This past week was such a challenge. However, before I regale you with what happened, we need to go further backwards before we can go forwards.

Once, there was a man, a beautiful man, and he told me something which I still hold precious:

You’re strong.”

“Strong?” I scoffed.

“Yes,” he confidently replied. “And that’s what I cherish about you.”

Over the following months, such words would haunt me until one day I told this man, “You’re words plague me! How can I be strong when I’m this [emotional, expressive, vulnerable, sensitive]?”

“Strength doesn’t mean you don’t show emotion. It means you have the courage to be you.”

Liberated from my false interpretation, I eased into my new title, relinquishing my need to prove my strength. It was then other challenges arose.

“Strong,” “strength,” “power,” etc. are too arbitrarily defined, especially for us in this post-modern, post-millennial, societal-revolutionary-infused culture. “Strong” is being reinterpreted every day, usually based upon one’s own experiences. There is no commonality, no standard or example to which we are upheld.

If I were to base strength upon my own experiences, I would define “strong” entirely by the example of my mother: a fierce woman who has endured a lifetime of hardships and pain only to find love and joy after years of clinging to a frail hope.

However, even my mother’s version of strength is given definition by an outside source, which influences my own. What is that source?

A people, a history, a belonging.

The Jewish people for millennia have been singled out as a different culture, ethnicity, group, etc. because of their chosen lifestyle (but whether they choose it freely or it was chosen for them is a different topic).

Due to their apparent differences, assimilation has long been a struggle for the Jewish people. The greatest cause to fear faithfulness to Hashem is persecution. Pogroms, slavery, Holocausts, inquisitions, and more have been executed in hopes of destroying the Jewish people, their way of life, their heritage, their faith. Some see assimilation as the only hope of avoiding such pain. It is not so.

When the Nazis were killing innocents throughout World War II, they did not care if you were a Jew by creed and deed only. If you had one drop of Jewish blood – or if you associated with them in any form but were not ethnically Jewish – you were murdered. There were also those non-Jews who were persecuted for their differences too: homosexuals, the Romani peoples, those with disabilities, and many, many more. These totalled 5 million in addition to the 6 million Jews who perished.

And yet the Holocaust, as atrocious as it is, is merely one example from a history of persecution.

There is, however, still hope: the Jewish people are faithful. They are the ones to whom the very oracles of Heaven were given, and to those oracles, those covenants they still cling. Even now, after over two thousand years, the Jewish people have once again returned home, to Israel.

The modern state of Israel is a thriving, exotic paradise, an oasis in a barren desert, a country of refuge, and has been for 70 years.

It is the faithfulness of the Jewish people, their steadfast love for Hashem and His mitzvot, which gives them their strength, for through their devotion and love, they endure, suffer long, and count all things as a loss for knowing He who gave the Torah, who descended onto the Mount in the desert, who redeemed them from Egypt’s hand with signs and wonders.

Like a man woos a woman, Hashem wooed the Jewish people and knit them to Himself in passion and love in the desert. Thus, as a husband loves a wife, so does He love Israel; and as a wife submits to her husband in trust and faithfulness, so does Israel trust in Hashem. It is this marriage which gives the Jewish people their strength.

I think, therefore, one of the “side effects” of love, true love, is confidence, which perhaps is a better term than “strong” or “strength”, for confidence with an equal zeal to endure, tested over time, begets strength.

Unlike the man in the aforementioned dialogue-vignette, I’ve never considered myself as strong, my confidence sorely lacking. As an INFJ, I’ve always struggled with this, my extroverted feeling and “need” for harmony in my relationships and environment a bit more dominating than I would prefer.

And yet, I find myself recently quite outspoken, bold, unreserved, and I daresay even a bit blunt. Now I’m not equating these traits with confidence, but rather the result of confidence. Meaning where I would usually withhold information for the sake of another in false deference, I now confidently share my opinions without fear of how it will make someone feel. My assumed responsibility for others emotions is decreasing rapidly. Simultaneously, I’m more reliant and trusting of others, less isolated as I once lived.

Why is this?

As I have mentioned before, I believe this corresponds to what the great sage Hillel said:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when? Pirkei Avot 1:14

From this, we are taught that each of us has an authentic self, and if we do not reveal it, who are we but a shell of a soul not bringing purpose or worth into this world? We each have a Divine spark of life within us, but do we share it?

Earlier I theorized confidence is a side effect of true love. I observed this from not only other stories I have heard, but also from myself. The man in the vignette showed me a part of myself I did not know existed, truly, and in so doing unknowingly provided first a paralysing expectation which turned into a liberating encouragement, which ultimately helped me dare to achieve more in life.

It is because for once, I had something, or someone, new to be strong for.

This past week showed me that, tested that. I just pray, as in all things, Hashem uses it for His purposes and glory. Though, amazingly, all this is but a portrait of the story which came first, the love which came first: my history with and love for Hashem.

Love is quite a liberating thing, for it provides a safe haven from all other relationships to be wholly, completely one’s true self without reservation or rejection.

I think this is why I am as obsessed with The Phantom of the Opera as I am, and similar stories. It is not Christine who I see myself as; it is Christine who I aspire to be. Rather, I relate more to the Phantom as I think we all do. We each of us have a part of our souls which we see as dark, grotesque, and vile, a part of us which has only been met with pain and rejection, the part we attempt to always hide.

Yet it is only after his mask is removed the Phantom learns what it means to be loved, for it is when Christine sees him for who he truly is she can extend a kiss in compassion towards this man who has been denied all aspects of human interaction. He is then wholly accepted as we long to be.

Perhaps that is why I have an affinity for masks and hiding and shadows and phantoms because I have long lived as one hiding in plain sight waiting for the day when someone would help me remove these masks and live unashamedly as I am, as me.

For so long I hid away out of fear because I lived a life of rejection and pain. Though, I have been on the road of redemption for a long while; life is a journey after all. My masks likewise removed, and after this week, I am encouraged to continue climbing higher up this summit.

Maybe now I will get a greater glimpse of the beauty of what is to come, encouraged to climb more.