I’m sitting in my car after a very intense and emotional therapy session.
Before I put the car into drive, I sit here and reflect. Reflecting over today’s session, my journey the last few years as well as the Three Weeks, Tisha B’Av, and Shabbos Nachamu.
Last week, I wrote about Tisha B’Av. I wrote that it’s so hard to mourn the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash that happened thousands of years ago when our own inner landscape was so destroyed, defiled, and torn apart. When our own inner landscape never had the chance to blossom and bloom the way it was meant to.
I wrote that many survivors could write their own Eicha. Our own lament. Perhaps that’s why it can be so difficult to connect to Tisha B’Av, because we are still living our own Eicha.
And then just one day later was Shabbos Nachamu.
The Shabbos of comfort and consolation.
And if I’m being honest…
I wasn’t feeling it.
I wasn’t ready for Nachamu. Not because I don’t want comfort, but because I’m still hurting too much to receive it. My own inner temple is still on fire and it’s too soon to feel consoled.
Not because I want to stay in the pain, but because I can’t simply stand up and pretend everything is okay just because Tisha B’Av ended.
Today, after another very difficult therapy session, a thought came to me.
If we each had our own Eicha…
And if many of us couldn’t fully celebrate Nachamu…
Perhaps we could create our own version of Nachamu.
Not a day.
Not even an hour.
Just a moment.
A collective moment.
A moment shared by people who may never meet each other, yet somehow know and feel each other’s pain.
A moment of recognizing who we are, what we’ve survived, and what we continue to do every single week.
Human beings naturally avoid grief.
We avoid the dark places of life.
It’s painful, frightening and uncomfortable.
And yet;
For so many of us, this is exactly where we willingly go every single week.
We walk into a therapist’s office, and we voluntarily return to the darkest places of our lives.
We revisit memories we’ve spent years trying to bury.
We allow ourselves to feel emotions we’ve spent decades trying to avoid.
Week after week.
Month after month.
Year after year.
Sitting here today, in this parking lot, after one of the heaviest therapy sessions I’ve had in a while, there’s a small part of me that feels proud.
Proud that I keep showing up.
Proud that I keep fighting.
Proud that I keep choosing healing, even when every part of me wants to run.
So maybe this can be our own Nachamu.
Not consolation, joy or pretending to be okay.
But perhaps…
Just one collective moment.
A moment where all of us, although we’ve never met, can hold hands in a way that only survivors know how.
A moment of invisible unity.
A moment to recognize one another.
A moment to recognize ourselves.
A moment of quiet pride.
A moment of strength and victory.
Not because we’ve finished healing and not because the pain is gone.
But because we’re still here.
Still showing up.
Still walking into those therapy rooms.
Still facing the darkness.
Still choosing healing, one difficult step at a time.
If you can’t feel that pride today, let me hold it for you.
And if I can’t feel it one day, I hope someone will hold it for me.
Because maybe that’s what this invisible community does.
We carry each other when one of us can’t carry ourselves.
I deserve it!
You deserve it!
And we all deserve it!
Never surrender 