Venturing into the Darkness

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I have pretty much always been afraid of the dark. I mean come on, it's the place where monsters and the Boogeyman hideout.  Even though I'm 25, the edge of the bed is still one of the most dangerous places I can think of when I want to stretch out my feet in the middle of the night. You just don't do it! It seems like simple knowledge and logic that if a room is dark you will want to turn on the light before you go in.  You never know what's going to be there in the dark in the shadows lurking and waiting for you. I’ve lived with this fear in silent shame all through my childhood until the very last day of High School. In fact  it was until my graduation ceremony.

I went to a very large high school and there were more than 900 people in my graduating class. Even though I didn’t know everyone I did know most people by sight if not by name. So when I heard that the valedictorian was a guy that I kind of knew, I think that we had had a class together but I didn’t really know him. These are the things that I knew at the time and in some ways still know about him: He was extraordinarily tall, he was a youth pastor, and that he was going to Yale in the Fall. When he started speaking I didn’t have high expectations. I certainly didn’t imagine that I would be sitting here, 7 years later, and be able to remember what was said and how I felt during the speech. He started his speech in what I now know is the typical fashion, and then he went rogue.He stood up in front of thousands of people and admitted that he was afraid of the dark. As someone who is also afraid of the dark, my ears perked up and he had my full and undivided attention. At 18 if anyone is going to admit to being afraid of the dark in front of thousands of people you stop and listen.

So, he explained that he's also afraid of the dark. He turns on the light before he goes into a room, and he doesn't watch scary movies. He recognized that his fear of the dark in some ways controls his life. Then he did something that at the time I didn’t see coming.. He related it to leaving high school. We were leaving an inner sanctum, where our parents and teachers took care of us and for the most part we knew what was coming and what was expected of us. For many people he said you are leaving your childhood home and other are leaving the state in which we grew up in. We were doing this though to become who we needed to be, to achieve our full 
potential. We were going into the dark and experiencing the unknown. It was in that moment that he crystalized the parallel by stating clearly that his (and my) fear of the dark really stems from a fear of the unknown.

It’s true.  even when I know what my bedroom looks like or what the hallway in my childhood home looked like when the lights are off I'm unsure, the reason why I'm unsure and not because I think things might have moved or I'm really concerned that someone's there lurking in the shadows it's because I can't be sure. I can't in some ways race for what's going to happen next. I have to trust.

Well, I went through college, and grad school and although it was the unknown and even though it wasn't always sure what was going to happen I made it through. when I look back I see that there's never really any of doubt that I wouldn't make it through this experience is okay. now however I'm starting a new unknown. I'm making Aliyah.

I'm moving to a country where I don't speak the language, my family doesn't live here and most of my friends live 6000 miles away, at least. Yet,I love it here. I feel more comfortable here than I have ever felt in a country. I love the people here are blunt, passionate, intelligent, and loving. I love that when I get into a cab I can be given deep life advice from the driver in one breath and then in the next be invited over for Shabbat, or told that their nephew/son/uncle/cousin is dating and that we would be perfect together. I love being in a country that feels more like a family. It makes this idea of venturing into the unknown a little bit more knowable. The fear still persists though lingering in the pit of my stomach.

It’s the fear of being dependent after being independent for so long. The fear of not being able to make doctor's appointments, to ask for where to buy good shoes, or just generally how to get around sometimes...But I’m doing it. Despite all of the unknowns I'm moving to a country where I have to  learn how to say basic things and how to form basic sentences because that is home.

What I did with my fear of the dark when I was younger was I turned on the nightlight, I open the door and I made sure that my parents had thoroughly checked my room to make sure that there are no monsters and the Boogeyman was for sure not under my bed. what I did with my fear of the dark when I was in  high school going into college was I faced it head on. I knew that there's no scary Boogeyman in the dark it was just me. even though that was sttill at times just as scary. I did it though I graduated and they went on to grad school I moved out of the state that I grew up in moved to a place where I knew no one and I started over, looking back that was easy compared to what I'm doing now but probably the close the closest experience I'm going to get or I was going to get back into the states. and now... Even though I'm scared and even though it feels like I'm walking head into the unknown I remind myself that I have a night light, I have people who have done this before me and that I am more capable and more resilient than even I know about.

Still be a smidge the scared of the dark but it doesn't defeat me anymore. I'm ready for these new challenges.

 Life is supposed to be an adventure.