I’m having a really hard time right now, and I figured I’d write about it. Maybe it’ll help me process what I’m feeling, or maybe someone else will relate. I don’t know—I just needed to put this somewhere.
The Dread is Real
Every year, my husband travels to Uman for Rosh Hashana. It’s become our annual separation that marks the beginning of the year. I’ve learned to navigate it, to count the days, to hold onto the knowledge that he’ll be back soon. But this year somehow feels different for me. Heavier. More difficult.
The plan is for him to leave next Wednesday, which means he’ll be gone for Shabbos, then straight into Yom Tov. And here’s what’s getting me—I’m already drowning in these feelings, and he hasn’t even left yet. I’m feeling the full intensity of loneliness and dread in anticipation of the real thing. The actual separation is still over a week away, and I’m already aching from it.
The timing creates this extended absence that stretches like an eternity in my mind, but I keep telling myself it’s only ten days. Just ten days, and then he’ll be home. I can do ten days, right? I’ve done it before.
A Reality Check
Then, in the middle of my self-pity, a thought strikes me like a lightning bolt, stopping me cold in my wallowing: What about all those people who don’t have anyone coming home in ten days?
What about the singles who will spend Rosh Hashana completely alone? What about those who don’t have the luxury of counting down days until their beloved returns, because there is no beloved to return? What about those who would give anything for the promise of someone walking back through their door after any amount of time?
I’m getting a glimpse into what this must feel like for you, this anticipatory loneliness that settles in before Yom Tov even begins. The loneliness doesn’t wait politely for the actual holiday to arrive; it’s already here, already weighing heavily as you flip through the calendar pages.
Here I am, drowning in loneliness over a temporary separation from someone who loves me, someone who will call me every day he’s gone, someone who is thinking of me even as he davens in Uman, someone who will come home to me with stories and renewed spiritual energy. And there are people out there who would trade places with me in a heartbeat.
The pain and loneliness they must carry, not just during Yom Tov, but every single day, must be so intense, so crushing, that my ten days of separation suddenly seems almost insulting to complain about. They don’t get to count down to reunion. They don’t get late-night phone calls from someone who misses them. They don’t get the anticipation of someone walking back through the door.
No Easy Answers
I could sit here and write all the things I’m supposed to say. I could craft beautiful, inspiring paragraphs about divine timing and bashert and how everything happens for a reason. I could string together motivational platitudes about how being alone teaches us to be complete within ourselves, or how singlehood is a gift that allows for undivided focus on spiritual growth.
But I don’t have it in me to write those words.
Sometimes life hurts in ways that don’t have neat explanations or silver linings or lessons wrapped up in pretty bows.
The truth is, I don’t understand Hashem’s ways.
I don’t understand His plans for any of us.
I don’t understand why some people find their person early and easily, while others spend decades searching or never find them at all.
I don’t understand why some marriages are filled with joy and partnership, while others are marked by struggle and loneliness, even within togetherness.
I don’t understand why some people seem blessed with abundance in every area of life, while others face challenge after challenge.
I don’t understand.
Choose to Live
But here’s what I will say, what I know with absolute certainty even in the midst of not understanding anything else: Hashem wants us to live. Not to exist, not to survive, not to simply endure until some future moment when things get better – but to truly live.
He doesn’t want us broken, constantly deferring our happiness and fulfillment to some distant “when.” I will be happy when I get married. I will be complete when I have children. I will feel fulfilled when I get that job, lose that weight, move to that place, achieve that goal. We spend so much time living in the conditional future tense that we miss the unconditional present moment.
Right here, right now – this is when you can live a full, productive, and fulfilled life. Not next year when things might be different. Not when your circumstances align perfectly with your dreams. Not when you finally have everything you think you need to be happy.
If this is where you are – single and longing for partnership, married but struggling with temporary separations, facing any kind of challenge or emptiness or pain—this is where Hashem wants you right now. And from exactly this place, with exactly these circumstances, with exactly this combination of blessings and struggles, you have so much to give and accomplish.
The loneliness you feel doesn’t disqualify you from living fully. The pain doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. The questions without answers don’t mean your faith is insufficient. Sometimes the most profound act of emunah is choosing to live wholeheartedly in the midst of not understanding, not having, not knowing.
Choose to live.
Choose to find meaning and purpose and joy right here in your current reality.
Choose to believe that your life, exactly as it is today, has value and potential and holiness.
Choose to stop waiting for permission from your circumstances to start really living.
This doesn’t take away from the pain or make it any less real. Your loneliness is valid, your hurt matters, and I’m not asking you to pretend it’s easy. But from right here, in the middle of the ache, we can still choose how we show up.
Maybe that’s what living fully actually means – it’s not the absence of pain, but the choice to remain fully present and engaged with life even when it hurts.
Ten days. I can do ten days.
And for those whose count isn’t leading to a reunion — you can do today. Just today.
And tomorrow, you can choose again.
