If I'm honest.

I’ve spent the majority of my life trying to be understood.

That might sound dramatic, but I think most of us do. Somewhere much deeper than our own consciousness, we are begging all witnesses to understand why we are the way we are. I guess this goes hand in hand with the desire to be affirmed. The simple knowledge that yes, you are loved as you are. Period.



Within my insatiable desire to be understood, known, and affirmed, I spent most of my life dissecting myself internally and externally. I stretched my darkest and ugliest spots across the operating tables, located in the brightest rooms. I dared to hope that maybe this time they would go away. It was all black and white to me. Wrong or right. There was no middle ground; no grey areas. I loathed myself and all of my weaknesses. Therefore, I loathed anyone or anything that reminded me of them. They terrified me.



I’m writing this today because that part of me that has always wanted to be understood hasn’t vanished completely.  Despite the past few years of learning how to let go of that need and release peoples opinions, something in me still wants the story to be told in its truest earthly tone. Mine.



For as long as I can remember, I have been attracted to women. While other little girls were dreaming about Leonardo DiCaprio, I secretly hated myself for dreaming about older girls. I was disgusted with myself. I was the little girl who was deeply confused as to why I had a crush on my babysitter, instead of the babysitters' boyfriend. I would never dare tell anyone about this deeply loathed secret. I would rather hide it in the deepest recesses of my soul from those closest to me… including myself.



Let me be clear. I was raised in the Capital of Idealism. My childhood is a whirlwind of adventure, magic, love, and the idolized romanticism that was completely and utterly bound and married to the letter of the law, that is religiosity.



I knew how my life was supposed to look. The prediction was tattooed on the walls of my heart, like a chalkboard with the many written lines attempting to make right what was wrong.  I was supposed to meet a good man, fall in love, and eventually (which means quickly) marry him and start a family.  

This is what I wanted. I wanted to be good. I wanted to make my father proud. I wanted to make my mother glow. 

I wanted to be normal.


I tried hard to attract the boys around me. I tried to believe that I liked them for more than being friends, but instead I found myself being attracted to the girl friends that I had.

Shame.



Deep, pillowing, shame.



Somehow in my attempt to be normal and to do the right thing, I always ended up as the failure. I couldn’t blame this failure on my attraction to women, because this was still the secret that no one could ever know about me. This was  the secret that I dared not even whisper. So instead, I blamed these failures on how I dressed or whether I was making myself feminine and attractive enough. I focused on men not being attracted to me. I couldn’t admit to anyone, let alone myself, that I wasn’t attracted to them.



It didn’t take long for this secret and the symptoms of hiding it to grow into a toxic self-loathing. It consumed my body, soul, and mind. I hated myself.



I was a disease.



No, I wasn’t struggling with some deep secret about how I was molested as a child, because I wasn’t.

No, I wasn’t hiding some traumatic event that altered my internal makeup; the traumas I experienced were shared with all of my siblings. They were no secret.

No, it’s not rejection from my mom. My mother was the most loving and maternal woman that I could ever possibly call “mama.”



The list goes on. I did the exhausting diagnostics.

I pushed. I pulled. I prodded. I weighed. I measured. I hurt. I healed. I fasted. I prayed.



I begged God.



Results: inconclusive.  



The result was a woman lying wounded and beaten by her own beliefs and the echoes of the beliefs around her. The result was a woman who started to believe that she was the stain on her family’s lineage, but she hadn’t done anything to become so tarnished. Worst of all, it wasn’t going away.





It’s been over three years since I finally let the veil fall away and my secret out. It’s been over a year that I no longer hate myself for it, but rather embrace it and celebrate who I am.



The last three years have been incredibly painful, confusing and full of internally violent waged wars. I wrestled long and hard. I don’t feel the need to give a full account of my journey here.

I know what it was. I know how it felt. I know what it looked like.



More than that, I know who I am. I’m still the Hadassah that I always was; I’m just a little more honest about what that looks like.



This isn’t a plea for affirmation. This is simply an offering. This is an offering of truth to those who have invested their hearts in my life in some way. I know I do not owe this, but I also have nothing to hide. I love who I am and I know that I am loved. That is enough for me.



As all of us always are, there is no doubt in my mind that I am still on a journey. I am happy to now be at a much more peaceful and full mile marker on this beautiful and treacherous journey that we each face in such different and glorious ways.



Love, take courage. Remain steadfast. Do not grow weary of the process. 

Hope still clings to the barest of bones and sings a better word over the ashes of your yesteryear.