Thank you UAJ--always there.  Dov, yeah it's ordinary.  Thank God for ordinary.  At last it's getting closer.  Thanks again.

idaat, you are amazing.
glad this hurdle was passed so well and you are growing closer to your family and to Hashem. that is the dream...

Hi Zem, thanks.  In no small part because of your help.  It's still 1dayatatime.

hi 1daat, wishing you a great shabbos!

R' 1daat,

Just caught up in reading this thread. (I neglected it for WAYYYY too long.  :-[ )

After the tears & smiles, came warmth. ... and love!  We never met either, but I would like to take part in the "Anonymouses Anonymous" meeting which Dov is planning!





P.S. I also attended those meetings which Rav Shmendrik is referring to; It was a wonderful experience! We all had stickers with our usernames on our shirts & HUGE smiles on our faces! It was a lot of fun!!!

Reb Yosef Hat tzakid,

Thank you for the nice things you said.

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 27 Jul 2011 16:36:
  I can only imagine.  To meet the Rav himself, you, and the other guys I've come to know and love, IN PERSON, would be amazing.  Did you guys make a minyon?  To Daven together!  Oy, somebody, PLEASE, let me know.  I'm west coast.  If it's in E Y or NY, no matter.  I'm flying out.

Hi guys. 

So the inevitable happened.  I knew it was coming.  I got my professional journal in the mail yesterday, and there it was in black and white: "Disciplinary Actions. blah blah blah..respondent plead nolo contendere blah blah blah...Respondent solicited a police officer... [I'm not including the details not because I'm ashamed, but because I'm concerned it could be triggering].

All I feel is sad. No drama, no crying and carrying on.  Just a deep sober feeling of finality and loss.  Now the worst is really over.  People will think what they think.  Since I have my God, the pretenses have been getting stripped away, with that love of His, and unflinching truth (Chesed sh'bgvurah).  Nobody can think worse of me than me, most especially when He comes with that annihilating nachama, and let's me know how little I am, and how much He loves me, and how it hurt Him to have to be so tough on me.  "Shah, it's ok now."

Someplace in his commentary on the Tanya, Rabbi Steinsaltz says something like, we cannot glimpse who we are until we can get on the periphery of our personality, by looking back.

The finality, the black-and-whiteness of seeing my name in the professional journal brought up a looking back at the desperate, frantic, lonely, empty, secret life I lived for thirty or forty years.  And then seeing, too, what Hashem had to do to wake me up.  To bring me back to Him.

That's all it was, really--What He had to do to bring me back under His wing.  And so,  "Gam zu... "

One less set of secrets.

When I go to see my daughter at the end of August, I'll be making a side trip to see her mother who is dying.  We will talk.  She is someone who understands this kind of talk.  It may look different when I get there, but my impression now is that it will be a good thing.  And that will be one more secret gone, one more person I can love without the tricks and disguises and all the manipulating how people see me. 

If you guys hadn't been there, time after time after time with your love and counsel and busting me, and making me not take my drama so seriously, getting here from there could never have happened.  He needed you.  You came through.  You did a mitzvah.  Ask for a Brochoh.

Thanks.

1daat, you are our brocha

Yes, you are our brocha. Thanks for sharing all that with us here. May Hashem continue to have Rachamim on you and on others who are suffering right now, and may you (and we) have the wisdom and strength to stay on the beautiful path you have taken hold of for a while now.
Amein.

Amain!  If I am something that's useful to you, it's a good thing.  Thank you for thinking that of me.

Now, on to the comedy part of out show...

"Yippee, Yippee.  I'm a brocho, mommy, I'm a brocho.  The guys said I was a brocho.  What's a brocho mommy?"

"A blessing".

Yippee, yipee, I'm a blessing, I'm a blessing.  Can I have t-shirt?  'I'm a blessing'?"

"Brocho Shmocho.  No, you can't have a t-shirt.  And stop picking your nose!  Don't believe everything people say about you.  They really mean to say they love you.  If they call you a bad name, don't believe you are what they call you.  They're just trying to say how much they don't like you.  Besides, a brocho wouldn't pick its nose."

"Now go wash, make a motzi, and eat your dinner, brocheleh"

Oy vei.

Poor kid.

poor kid is right!  It's hard when the mother loves her son and doesn't want him to get a swelled head, confuses him, and doesn't tell him out loud how much she loves him.  No wonder he gets so excited when somebody says something nice to him.

succinct post, Dovy.  Nice.  Bulls eye.

Nu. Succinct? Miracles happen every day! ;D

So now it's off to see my daughter whom I haven't seen for many years.  I am clean with my sons, and now it seems the right time to clean up with her.  I have to be sure I'm not on a mission here, because it could be this isn't a good time for her.  I'll have to just use my intuition and trust "H.

I'm nervous.  But I also can't wait to spend time with her.  On the phone and emails, everything seems good. 

I'll check in afterwards.

Wishing you the best of luck with your daughter. Hashem is on your side and so are all of us here on the Forum.