Check out what I USED to do part-time before teaching:
My Movie Review!

This weekend was quite a spectacle. It all started because I had massive back pain (which is now just left-hand pain which will make me stop typing soon!). Anyway, instead of crashing with the fab Devora, I stuck to KJ and its peeps since Saturday I was poised to do very un-Shabbat like things. My lovely friend Nina and I, due to scheduling conflicts (as in my whole life), were forced to go to see Fiddler on the Roof on this very holy and sacred day. Okay, so technically I’m not Jewish but I’m so used to observing that it was almost painful to watch FOR. I loved it but I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things I wasn’t doing, wasn’t observing, rules I was breaking and worst that I was missing the Parsha class on a part of the Torah that I thought was particularly lovely. It didn’t occur to me until today that I am really happy and most of it stems from fulfilling this childhood wish of becoming Jewish and more importantly, feeling like I’m closer to G-d than I’ve ever been and more accepting of MY life.

Yes, MY life. See, I almost martyred myself a while back. I tend to give and give until it hurts, until I bleed, until I don’t remember that there is a me that exists. It got pretty ugly. Most of my friends (and I understand why) couldn’t stand who I became. Now, people tell me I’m so happy. They tell me I am so accepting of myself and it’s really because I survived. When you survive something fairly unscathed (VERY UNSCATHED) that was almost insurmountable, all you can do is breathe a sigh of relief. An unparelled sigh of relief that calls for a sentence fragment.

$20K in debt, juggling school work, work-work, Judaism, cats and sleeping is hard but it is nothing compared to my childhood, nothing compared to my teens and nothing compared to the unbearable pain that stopped when I turned 25. I am finally becoming the person who I was supposed to be and that is something amazing. Truly amazing. I wish I could run away to Israel and just learn about Judaism and fully tap into that side of myself but even if I cannot (and I really cannot but maybe I will be able to go to Israel this summer!), I realize that this moment, right now, is the happiest I have ever been and if I could mass produce it and sell it, I would probably give it away for free because everyone deserves to feel like this even if it’s only for a second.

A very special thank you to everyone who helped make this happiness possible.