This piece is a very personal one, and one that I decided not to publish when I first wrote it, as a letter to two friends, almost three years ago. Now, with time forging a buffer between me, in the present, and the rawness of this experience then, I have decided I am ready to retroactively publish it, and to see where its resonances land. I reread this with a measure of sadness, and also with compassion for myself then, and also with admiration for those who are able to constantly hold the contradictions that I did not feel strong enough to hold, and also with relief that this is no longer a struggle that tears me up on a daily basis. Here is:

Fall, 2011

I woke up Thursday morning, the first day of Rosh HaShana, the Jewish new year, a time of renewal and rebirth and reawakening and reevaluating and re-being. I woke up Thursday morning, and I put on my kippah, and I looked in the mirror, and I thought to myself:

“What is this thing I am putting on my head?”