The Three Weeks

When that unmentionable thing happens (a diagnosis of infertility, your cycle gets cancelled, you have a miscarriage, you need a hysterectomy, or your baby dies of SIDS), your perspective on life changes.

You are no longer the sweet, innocent, naive person who thinks that the world is filled with ice cream and butterflies. You become a skeptic and spin doomsday scenarios when you try to fall asleep at night.

From the outside, everything looks the same. You seem unfazed by your experience.

But on the inside everything is different.
Everything *has* changed.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the saddest period on the Jewish Calendar, the beginning of the three weeks, the time in history when the Jewish people were thrown intro exile and the Beis Hamikdasah (Temple) was destroyed.

And while there are those who don't like to think about unpleasant things, or block them our of their minds, most of us can't help ourselves. We ponder, ruminate, belabor and worry about what the future holds. We can't be happy-go-lucky knowing about all the ways something can go wrong.

The IWSTHAB community is filled with people like this. You have seen the worst of what life has to offer. Your own personal beis hamikdash has been smashed to smithereens...sometimes more than once...sometimes for years. It's not possible to *not* think about it.

But what you can do is prepare. You can fill your storehouses with people who love you, be mindful of self-care items and routines, create boundaries to those who don't know how to support you, and have safe spaces where you can feel protected.

This weekend, as people bolster themselves with food and drink to prepare for the Fast the 17th of Tammuz (traditional fast that marks the beginning of the three weeks), think about how you are going to prepare yourself for what's coming.

Because the "thinking about it" only is detrimental when you spin doomsday scenarios without an end.

You can write your own script. You can take charge and protect yourself from the upcoming battle.

And we will be here every step of the way.