Here’s something I wonder about periodically in the harsh dread of night: Is it possible that there’s an allotted amount of personal strength doled out to each of us and eventually those wells experience a drought? It seems only fair that the tears we shed should be able to replenish all that’s gone missing, but I’ve learned for sure over the years that it’s simply not the case.
At sixteen, I wrote my college essay about the subject of personal strength. Back then, it was probably the quality I felt best defined me. I guess I was tested a lot when I was young. I think most of us are, but here’s my own mini rundown of the curious dysfunction that was my formative years:
o Parents divorced (really contentiously) when I was five.
o Moved to an area of town where I was the only Jewish kid in the school and one of only four kids who came from what they called “a broken home” in the 1980s.
o Called “a dirty Jew” when I was in the 3rd grade by some boy in my class. To this day, I remember his name and the sneer forming on his upper lip as the words came out of his mouth while I leaned against the monkey bars. I didn’t know why he was saying those ugly things to me, but I know that my head slowly drooped in shame.
o Hated the man my mother married when I was in the 8th grade.
o Moved into the city to live with my father when I was in the 9th grade. I was at my most vulnerable then. I didn’t know a single person in my new school in Chelsea. I was also at the most hideous looking physical stage of my entire life, something I would be reminded of each and every time I caught sight of my reflection in a mirror or a pane of glass.
o Saw my father keel over and die in front of me when I was fourteen.
o Sued by my step-monster immediately after my father’s death. She decided it might be nice to have the money he’d left to me so she dragged me into a lawsuit to try to get it. She also stole my puppy and refused to give him back. In those lost days following my father’s passing, I needed that dog desperately – and I never saw him again.
o Moved back in with my mother following my father’s death.
o Woke up to the news that one of my dearest friends died in a car accident exactly one year to the day that my father died.
It was after the loss of my friend that the people around me began commenting on my apparently impressive reservoir of strength. I remember getting a phone call quite out of the blue from a guy I wasn’t yet close to and he told me that he couldn’t stop thinking about me and how strong I am for going through what I did and remaining perpetually optimistic and upbeat. Honestly? That was a better compliment to receive than hearing that he liked my dimples or that I was starting to develop a body that looked suspiciously like an hourglass. Those physical things were nice, but they were also beyond my control while the strength factor was something I made it a point to cultivate.