She won’t eat tasty things because she might get fat and he might come any minute and she doesn’t want to be a fat bride. She’s been stuck frozen like this for 10 years already, in the same place with no motivation to move forward for ‘he’ didn’t yet come.
I ask her directly: “How will he like you like this, what can you ‘sell’ him? That you don’t enjoy anything? That your life is tough? That you’re sad because you’re still single? That you haven’t found normal employment because; ‘why should I bother, I’m getting married anyways’? That you’re not living in the present with reality?”
She looks at me sadly and says: “I know, I know…” but I am relentless, “and?”…. I ask her. “Yes I know I’m not so attractive when I come with this kind of approach,” she says and I continue pushing: “And?” …She fills in: “I know I really must do something with my life”…. “And?” I push further.
After a long conversation she understands she is holding herself stuck in one place, but she concedes she is ready to break the ice and get unstuck. But maybe not yet because it’s almost Hanukkah and maybe he’ll come and I’ll have a Hanukkah miracle…”
I don’t let her get away with this and I give her some questions and thought to take home with her. I’m convinced that she will make her own Hanukkah miracle, because honestly, even marriage is not a miracle unless you make it into one.
She goes home and I’m lost in thought. A week later she’s back and I’m pushing her again, helping her get unstuck. She suddenly says with tears in her eyes; “I want to start celebrating my life! I deserve to celebrate it!”
Looking at her I realized she broke the ice and she got unstuck and I ask her to do something with her intentions not just leave them as good ideas. She says: “I’m looking for a new apartment this week”. I push; “looking or finding” and that can be annoying. But she answers; “finding of course” and her posture subtly improves, her head picks up.
She sends me an email 2 days later: “I found a lovely apartment and I set up some appointments for interviews. I want to celebrate life!” My heart cheers her on and celebrates with her. “I know nothing will come until I make it come.”
In my heart I know that after she’s in the new apartment and gets her job, she’ll make her house a warm inviting place to come back to and her work will fill her time and her purse. She will get to the point where she doesn’t wait for him but she will learn how to bring him and he will come. Just like a miracle…the one she made for herself!
