{"id":143441,"date":"2022-05-22T08:34:16","date_gmt":"2022-05-22T16:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=143441"},"modified":"2022-05-22T17:18:15","modified_gmt":"2022-05-23T01:18:15","slug":"when-your-options-dwindle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=143441","title":{"rendered":"When Your Options In Life Dwindle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are few things that are as thrilling to me as the open road with no commitments. You give me time and you give me money and I&#8217;ll want to drive or fly away.<\/p>\n<p>Like a running back, I want to run to daylight. <\/p>\n<p><script>!function(r,u,m,b,l,e){r._Rumble=b,r[b]||(r[b]=function(){(r[b]._=r[b]._||[]).push(arguments);if(r[b]._.length==1){l=u.createElement(m),e=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0],l.async=1,l.src=\"https:\/\/rumble.com\/embedJS\/uajap1\"+(arguments[1].video?'.'+arguments[1].video:'')+\"\/?url=\"+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+\"&args=\"+encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify([].slice.apply(arguments))),e.parentNode.insertBefore(l,e)}})}(window, document, \"script\", \"Rumble\");<\/script><\/p>\n<div id=\"rumble_v13336r\"><\/div>\n<p><script>\nRumble(\"play\", {\"video\":\"v13336r\",\"div\":\"rumble_v13336r\"});<\/script><\/p>\n<p>I still savor the memories of all those college professors who told me I could become anything I wanted. My mom said I could become a star for God. My dad was a star. I wanted to outshine him. <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll never forget taking the I-5 South from Sacramento in March of 1994. I was returning to LA after five years away and I had a place to stay in Westwood for a few weeks until I got things sorted. I had money in the bank and I had choices and I had dreams and I had no obligations. <\/p>\n<p>I was 27. I was coming out of six years of bed-ridden Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I felt like the world was my oyster (while living out of my car for most of the next year). I loved exploring LA and its beautiful women. I thought about returning to UCLA to finish my degree. A 27-year old on a university campus would not be weird. Or I could go to work for Dennis Prager. He said he might have a job for me. Or I could become an actor or write a book. The possibilities seemed endless (beyond my significant limitations of exhaustion).<\/p>\n<p>As the months rolled by, I felt my options dwindle. I couldn&#8217;t articulate what was going on. I just felt my life getting smaller. I saw that I would not be on the same level as my peers for much longer because they were all getting established in careers and family. Within six weeks, I learned I wasn&#8217;t getting the job with Dennis Prager. Then I realized I did not want to return to UCLA to study Economics. So I started going on acting and modeling casting calls and I got hooked on the Hollywood culture. At the same time, I was having a ball exploring every type of Judaism. I felt like there was a significant conflict between these two worlds. <\/p>\n<p>One significant parting of the roads that I faced was my sex life. Whatever I chose to do with that would send my life in two different directions. If I chose to contain myself, the best way to live the monogamous life was serious religion. If I chose not to contain myself, I could wander indefinitely. I was having a ball having a ball but I sensed that my promiscuity was incompatible with my best interests (marriage and children and career and commitments like a mortgage). Without consciously choosing balling over non-balling, I kept balling and though my actual promiscuity ended by the summer of 1995, the fantasy of promiscuity dominated my life for the next 17 years and with it a mounting dread that my life was going unlived. <\/p>\n<p>The most intense Judaic experiences I had in LA in my first three years were at Aish HaTorah. Orthodox Judaism did not seem as rational to me as non-Orthodox forms of Judaism, but it moved me more deeply. I resonated with Orthodoxy in ways I couldn&#8217;t articulate and did not expect but there were feelings of joy for me that were only available inside the dance. For my first six years in LA, I kept a foot in both camps, but by the summer of 2000, after a trip to Israel, I went in all in on Orthodoxy. That choice narrowed my life options. <\/p>\n<p>By the time Covid rolled around in 2020, I was simultaneously happy with a small life and yearning for something more.<\/p>\n<p>One great thing I learned from ten years of therapy and 12-step programs is that I always have more options than I think. <\/p>\n<p>I want to run to daylight. At the same time, I recognize the force of some sort of ratchet in my psyche that wants to separate me from others so I can live alone in my delusions. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s 2022 and I&#8217;m nearly 56. I&#8217;m happy but I&#8217;m living small and there&#8217;s got to be more for me. My default setting is towards isolation and I have to keep making concrete choices against my grain to go social. So most every Sunday these days, I explore LA again like it&#8217;s 1994. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are few things that are as thrilling to me as the open road with no commitments. You give me time and you give me money and I&#8217;ll want to drive or fly away. Like a running back, I want &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=143441\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143441"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143479,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143441\/revisions\/143479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}