Summer of Change 2

I got lucky and just around the time of my mid summer disillusionment, a gadol had come to visit the camp so I did what any ben torah would do, I asked him what I should do. Surprisingly, he told me to go to college. He may have been right or wrong, either way, I didn't go to College right away. I felt that there were many more gates to open and bridges to cross before I could lay a quick fix solution on this problem. I must have been intuitively aware of the pain that I needed to feel, the anger that I needed to experience. There was more to this picture and I needed to find it out. No, of course, I was not going to give up on the idea of becoming a ben torah, but I started to become more acquainted with the possibility of needing to take a short break. No, of course I would not give up on what I had been working towards for so long. So what would I do? I didn't know. I didn't give it a lot of thought. I was just in a lot of pain and I was trying to avoid feeling more pain. I just needed to feel better and I wanted to see what I could do to feel better. I didn't know what was happing but I sure hoped that no one who I knew would find out that I was taking a short break from Yeshiva. That would be so humiliating. I had built a reputation for myself, I couldn't just let that reputation go out the window. I needed that reputation, that's all I had. I had others thoughts about me. All I truly possessed was my impressions of what others thought of me. I needed to know that it was secure. Their opinion was my hope and my future.