BA’A M’NUCHA

Recording above of an Israeli song Carol and Judy used to sing

Good morning, Judy!

I just read your most recent post. What wonderful memories those photos and your recollections brought back! You write very movingly about the role of friends and music in your life, and about your feelings when we lost touch. I still can’t believe we let that happen.

I want to write about my relationship with Sam. Your experience with him may have been completely different, and I absolutely don’t want anything I say to besmirch your memory of him. Each relationship has its own dynamic. He was just completely wrong for me. I’m sure, that the soundtrack to this part of my life was Carly Simon’s “That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be!”

Not only was Sam the wrong man for me to marry, I was absolutely not ready to get married to anyone. I’d never lived on my own, never traveled, never had a chance to be, as Carly sang, “me first, by myself.”

My break-up with Sam was very sudden and dramatic. I know it took him by surprise; he didn’t really deserve that. I don’t think he ever understood what I wanted from the relationship. Then there was the issue of children. I’d always assumed when I was growing up, without thinking much about it, that I would get married and have kids some day. That’s just what people did, without questioning it. Well, during one of our arguments, I shouted, “I don’t have to have children unless I want to!” What I’d said was one of those things you blurt out in an argument, yet the minute the words left my mouth, I knew they were true. I didn’t have to have children unless I wanted to. Maybe I would, maybe not, but it was an option, not an obligation; my choice, not my biological destiny. And I never wavered from that realization in the years to come.

I have shared with you many of my other reasons for not marrying Sam (not for the blog). If I sound angry and bitter and hard on Sam, it’s because I WAS for many, many years. It wasn’t until I attended my 30-year high school reunion that this changed. I saw Sam there. We had a very cordial conversation. He seemed like a nice enough guy. I realized after our conversation that I was tired of carrying around all that anger and negative feeling, it took too much energy, and it was time to let it go. And *poof* there it went.

Love, Carol

It was very interesting to read this entry from 1980 in my diary. I pondered the paragraph where I mentioned I lied. It took awhile for me to understand that I must have told Sam I was engaged to Michael, before it happened. (Clicking on this brings it up larger)

Hi Carol,

I was going to surprise you, but I am planning to do a recording of Ba’a Menucha. I’ll just do it on Garage Band by myself. I just pulled out the songbook – it is quite beautiful.

Thank you for your honest sharing. I appreciate that you opened up so much to me, and I am sorry for what must have been a challenging chapter in your life. It was a good thing that you followed your heart.

I loved that Carly Simon song by the way. I used to sing it all the time!!!

Thank you so much for giving me peace tonight, as I process so much. Your words remind me that I also followed my intuition on my life’s journey.

I am happy with my life and feel so blessed with my family.

Love, Judy

Hi, Judy,

I’m very glad my story helped give you some perspective. I think we’ll have a lot to talk about when we see each other in person!

Looking forward to Post #200, and I can’t wait to hear your recordings, especially Ba’a Menucha! Have fun performing this weekend!

Have fun with your performance tonight, and let your spirit soar with your music!

Love, Carol

Carol with Cheryl and Cindy.

Are you okay with coming out to my house? Or I could come to you. I think with singing it would be nice not to be in public.

I think Thursday is the most open day for me next week.

I am going to work on editing and sharing our correspondence. I think we make so many choices in our life and the important part is to follow our intuition, which both you and I did. To question that is pointless. What a lesson that is for me!

Actually, I just had a thought – if you want, you can come over sometime and go with me when I perform at Borders. I have two mics and if you want, you could sing with me!

Love, Judy

Good Morning, Judy–

What a stunning day it is!

I would be happy to come out to your place, unless you need an excuse to get out of the house and want to come to me. Thursday morning would be great for me. That way I don’t have to worry about traffic coming back. As for singing with you; that’s such a nice invitation, but I’d have to work up to that one! I’m really out of practice and don’t remember very many songs in their entirety, not to mention I’ve never sung in public like that before.

As far as conveying in your blog anything I wrote about Sam, I have no problem with it at all. I have nothing to hide there and if you find a way to write about it that you are comfortable with, then I’m sure I will be as well.

Enjoy your music-making this weekend!

Love, Carol

Hi Carol!

Love your message. I am very excited about you coming over. My house is a little “messy” from my kids and pets; but after reading what you grew up with, I’ll know that you’ll be very accepting! I spend no time on housekeeping, and my housekeeper spends all her time cooking when she’s here in the evenings.

I just found out that my Borders performance tonight was cancelled, due to a poetry reading that got shifted into my time slot. That’s fine. Last night when I played at the Simi Borders, it was very quiet. I didn’t put my heart into it as much as I would have liked. I think I prefer to play my own songs, but worry that people only want “familiar” tunes. But since I’m doing this for fun, I think I’ll just play my own songs more if that makes me happy!

I’m glad I’ll be home tonight. I want to post our beautiful correspondence. I am working hard to edit it down, but that’s not an easy task. I do think your honest words about your mom’s housekeeping would be something a lot of people might relate to.

Anyway, I am most excited that I took the time yesterday to play around at home with B’a M’nucha. I’m enjoying listening to it on my iPod. The harmony is so beautiful and now you can have it all come back to you. I’m going to share my recording with you now. Enjoy!

Can’t wait to see you!!!!

Love, Judy

Judy, thank you.

I have goose bumps, and tears in my eyes.

All my love, Carol

I transposed this into two keys, in order to record separate guitar tracks.

To be fair, I shared my posts about Carol with Sam to make sure he was also comfortable. Here is our exchange:

On Oct 29, 2010, Sam wrote:

Thanks, Judy…I appreciate your sharing this.  Hopefully, if Carol writes anything too inflammatory, (though I don’t know why she would), please tone it down for your blog.

I had kind of suspected the house issue…I didn’t want to share it first, because I didn’t want to portray Carol or her family in a bad light.  And I simply overlooked it…would have been completely unfair of me to judge Carol on the basis of her family’s housekeeping…and as I mentioned, they were always very nice to me and included me many times in their family events…Sam

Hi Sam,

I am ready to post Part 2 of my correspondence with Carol. I want to share the section where she mentions breaking up with you. If it makes you uncomfortable, let me know how I could edit it in a way that doesn’t embarrass or bother you.

I’m actually going to see her next week (on Thursday). She is going to come out to my home.

I’ll wait to hear from you. Hope you had a nice Shabbat.

Judy

Hi Judy,

Ran to the city tonight for an engagement party for the daughter of one of my friends…it is so strange as we progress to the time where our friends kids are getting married, and soon ours as well…we are becoming our parents generation…I definitely have not processed that!

You can certainly post what Carol has written.

I am glad that she has let go of those angry feelings, and hope that she has the life and relationship that she wants.  I certainly wish the best for her! (That is so trite, but that isn’t how I mean it!)

Have a great time with Carol next week.  Your friendship was very important to her.  If I was, in some way, responsible for your “breakup”, then it is only fitting that I helped to bring you back together….Sam

Hi Sam,

It has been awkward to be “in the middle!”

I can certainly say that my losing touch with her were because of the circumstances of her engagement to you and the move. However, that being said – I didn’t move much (my parents lived at 6000) for years and years. She could always have found me when her life changed. I posted my diary page. I knew I’d probably never hear from her again.

And I wouldn’t if I hadn’t become this new person eager for reconnecting! Thank you for helping me on “my journey of growth” to find her!

When I saw my diary page, it said I “lied to you” about being engaged to Mike. Gosh, I didn’t remember that! I was going to remove the line, but decided to show what a flawed person I was!

Have a great day, Judy

© Judy Unger and http://www.myjourneysinsight.com 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Judy Unger with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.