Apples and Honey

“Have a happy and a healthy”.

How many times have I heard that today? Too damn many. It is supposed to be a phrase that encompasses warm regards for the New Year. I don’t feel the need for warm regards at the moment, I’m sweating. Ok so I’m bitter, sick and bitter to be more specific. It’s a combination which makes the ideas of apples and honey, not only nauseating, but a mockery of how wretched I currently feel. By the way, it’s Rosh Hashanah for those of you who are not up to date with your Jewish holidays. Happy Jew Year!

Teaching at a Jesuit university can cause some serious religious identity issues. To be honest, I have always had serious religious identity issues and religious issues in general, but that rant will have to wait for another blog. The immediate problem is that religion is based on ultimatums. Believe, or else. The “or else” varies depending on the religion in question, but the list of “hell” variables are almost unending. It’s astounding how many different ways people can come up with to torture other people when they use their imagination. I have a lot of issues with threats. Threats just tend to piss me off. Threats passed down from generation to generation, well, that is just a whole new level of fun. Threats are a display of weakness. The weakness displayed by others makes me uncomfortable; my own weakness is almost intolerable.

My personal hell is currently being lived out. I am sweating my ass off, sitting on the same couch that I have been stuck to for the past four days. My students’ papers sit ungraded next to me, looming like some unattainable summit. The worst part is that every time I move, every joint aches with the arthritis of an 80-year-old woman. For someone who bases their life on motion and action there are few things worse than being unable to function. Some of my friends have an issue with my intolerance for weakness; some people are no longer my friends because of this intolerance. The way I see it, failure is acceptable; if you failed you know you at least tried. Saying you can’t is refusing to try. People think that weakness is something that must be tolerated. Everyone has their kryptonite. I have seen some of the “weakest” people stand up when everyone else turned away.

The Jewish New Year is always celebrated in my family by reflecting on the past in order to strengthen the future. My past has shown me what physical strength is, what it can do, what it can be used for. I have had the importance of knowledge imparted on me by generations of scholars and have become the eternal student. Perhaps this year is the year that I start to stand. This could be the year that I decide what is worth fighting for and start fighting. I have spent a lot of years fighting, don’t get me wrong. When you are filled with as much anger as I have been you fight blind. It doesn’t matter what you hurt as long as something hurts as much as you do. I have yet to find my true purpose, my ultimate battle. Perhaps I’ll find it this year. Perhaps. I still have my own personal weaknesses to conquer before I take on anything outside of myself. Oh, and it’s also the year of calling my grandmother more often; I have taken up permanent residence on the family shit list. You don’t comprehend the depths of hell until you’ve pissed off your 84-year-old Jewish grandmother. Well, bitterness and illness aside, have a happy and a healthy (New Year or Tuesday…depending).