An Open Letter to Israel

Two years. It's been over two years since I felt this rush, this giddiness. Sometimes that's what the nervousness is, the flush of the cheeks when I hear his voice, the inadvertent smile when his name is mentioned, the re-awakening of possibilities long since dormant. When he left, I shut myself off. Cast myself as a martyr or saint, a girl who would have to go without. Of course, it couldn't be my fault. I dated. Men fell, but I never felt anything for them. They were just distractions and sooner or later I got bored. It didn't take much, one insensitive remark, one phone call not returned, and it was over. I would call and put it end to it. Some of them chased me afterwards, but I had already moved on.

There was never a shortage of sex. Never a shortage of men to buy me drinks on a friday night, to put a hand on my leg, or compliment me. There was always a shortage of men to wake up to, a shortage of men to take walks with or snuggle on the couch or simply sit next to each other doing work. The men I did want, the men I did chase after were the ones I couldn't have for some reason. They were in love with their work or their girlfriends. They were undependable or didn't want a relationship. I chased them, and when they predictably rejected me I held this as a sign to the world that I wasn't meant to have love. That I was meant for a different kind of life. A life of disappointment, or unfulfilled longing, which might translate well into my work. I tried to tell myself that I didn't want a happy, romantic life with children, that I just felt that way because I couldn't have it, and once I did, I would reject it.

When this numbness started, two weeks after september 11th, I met a man whose wife had died there. He was destroyed. He rarely slept. He drank and smoked to the point of oblivion every night. At first, people said to give him time and wait. Time continued, and he grew worse, the insomnia the drinking intensified. His sister tried to talk to him about it, and he told her that his behavior would bring him closer to his dead wife.

But then things changed, His drinking eased off, and his smoking too. The other week I spoke to him, and he has a girlfriend now. I see them holding hands in the street. And I thought if it was time for him to move on, then it's time for me.

And yet beneath everything there is that fear, what if I am not capable? What if I do the wrong thing, and then I have only myself to blame for the years of loneliness to come? What if I am not indeed intended for this happy life?

Others fall into so easily, why must I stay awake and fret about each move? do I call or wait? do I trust or attempt to investiaget my suspicions? do I trust myself?

Because I trusted myself last time and look what happened.