Wednesday 7/11 (Sorry no Pictures for the next few days)

David and I got a late start since I didn’t get out of bed until around noon. I feel like I deserved it considering how many consecutive hours I had been awake! We were planning to be really productive and take care of as much of my immediate post-aliyah bureaucracy stuff as possible. We rushed into Jerusalem to make it to the bank so I could open an account which I needed before my meeting with the Absorption Ministry on the following Wednesday. The banks hold really strange hours here with a 3 + hour lunch break and sometimes they don’t even reopen after lunch. The post office (which I needed to get a random form to sign up for health insurance) has similarly strange hours so we really wanted to get going before they closed up for lunch. Of course things couldn’t continue being as easy as they had been for the first 24 hours, and within less than 5 minutes I was informed that I had rushed for nothing and couldn’t open a bank account due to the fact that I had made aliyah barely 24 hours ago and wasn’t yet in the “system”. The silver lining to that experience was that the guy was surprisingly nice and I was able to get by all by myself while David was parking the car. I have a hard time speaking Hebrew in front of people with whom I usually speak English so it was very empowering to be alone and have to deal with a situation with foreign vocabulary and succeed.
We didn’t give up and went straight to the post office which was thankfully directly across the street. My new neighborhood is a fantastic little microcosm with many bank branches, restaurants, a gym, grocery stores, and its own post office so I never need to leave the main area to take care of a majority of my needs. We had to stand in line to have the postal bank stamp a piece of paper saying which provider of the socialized health care I was choosing for my free first year coverage. It was surprisingly painless. I realized that the woman started addressing David (who’s Hebrew is infinitely better than mine) rather than me and for the first time I noticed that things like that are going to be some of the largest obstacles I will have picking up the language. When someone doesn’t look right at me and focus the conversation on me I tend to space out just enough to get confused. When they direct their conversation to me and fully engage me I am able to understand completely and really work on my ability to fully communicate in Hebrew. I asked David not to speak for me anymore unless I really need help. He is wonderfully understanding and I think he’s going to be a big help when it comes to my absorption here. We had some time to kill before the health care center opened from THEIR lunch break so we went to lunch. I had one of my all-time favorite sandwiches: tuna, lettuce, and tomato on a whole-wheat bagel. I start salivating just thinking about it. Yes I am sick and food obsessed, but deep down who isn’t?
After lunch we headed to the health center to sign me up. The lady was really nice, but I got a bit concerned when I had to fill out a prior medical history sheet and could not understand one thing. David was there to help me translate and he also had no idea what most of the things meant. The most disconcerting thing was the lady’s attitude: if I don’t know what it is, I don’t have it. I guess it makes plenty of sense considering most of the things on the list seemed serious, but at the time I was a little concerned that my future health care clinic receptionist didn’t even know what the diseases were. I am very glad David was there because I would have freaked out if I was alone and didn’t understand!!
We were supposed to meet up with a friend who was in town with her army unit but she wasn’t going to be available for an hour or two so we went to the mall to run some errands and waste time. The most productive thing we did was to buy my favorite childhood book, The Golden Compass, in Hebrew. I have the English copy with me so I could read it again before the movie comes out and I figured that it was a perfect way to work on my Hebrew especially since I already know the story.
It started getting late and the friend still wasn’t available so we decided to just head home. I was about to crash big time and wouldn’t have been much fun to hang out with anyway. On the way we got a call from one of David’s best friends from childhood. We decided to have dinner with her and her husband (also one of David’s childhood friends). A few hours later we met up at the grocery store to get supplies. We ended up making a gigantic stir-fry that took over and hour to make and even longer to eat. It was a really really lovely evening. I think there’s a lot to be said about spending time in the kitchen with friends. It’s also so much more satisfying to eat food that you prepared and know that you did a good job. It was really nice to sit with friends our age and do “grown-up” things. It is something I really enjoyed about living on my own in Austin. No matter how old you are and how much freedom your parents give you, its still not the same as truly being on your own and blazing your own path through things…even if it is as simple as what vegetables to put in a stir fry. We ended up staying until almost midnight. We’d been there for four hours and it felt like barely 2. I think that’s how you know you’ve had a good evening: When it’s over because it’s late but you feel like it has only begun and don’t want it to end. Fortunately for David and me it wasn’t quite over yet. When we got home we started to read. I sat and read out loud to him and we worked through the translation together. It was really tedious and we only got through about 5 or 6 pages in over an hour but it was still a really great feeling and by the end my speed and accuracy of pronunciation had greatly improved.

Omigosh I’m an Israeli: Part 2

On the way into the terminal I was skipping and dancing because I was too jazzed and happy to simply walk. The air-conditioning felt amazing. I was still so hot I could barely breathe when David reminded me that he’s the best boyfriend ever and had brought me an extra t-shirt to change into. So I ran to change and cool down. He gave me my newest army shirt commemorating his graduation from Officer’s Training from the week before. We moved back toward my little crowd and were standing around waiting for the ceremony to begin. There was food but I was way too excited to eat anything. Supposedly it was good so at least the guests had something to eat while they waited!! I thought that all of the surprises were over and that I could finally start to relax and let it sink in that I had just moved to Israel when David pulled out another surprise. It was a huge Israeli flag that he’d had signed by all of my friends who were in the army etc. and weren’t able to make it to the airport to see me that day. It had taken him almost a month to get the flag to everyone between all of their army schedules. It is so beautiful and meaningful and I almost started crying yet AGAIN when he gave it to me and I started reading the beautiful things my friends had written to me. I became interesting again becase a few people came over to take pictures of us with my new flag of my new country! Then we had the ceremony. We sat, not like I hadn’t been sitting for hours on end or anything, which was difficult because I was so excited I couldn’t sit still and I definitely didn’t listen to any of the speeches. Tzipi Livni the foreign minister spoke but since I don’t have the highest level of respect for her I didn’t feel bad for ignoring her along with all of the other speeches. I was happy just to be breathing normally and holding David’s hand. Once that was over it was time to go upstairs to the Absorption/Interior ministry offices. Everyone else went home/wherever they needed to be that day and David waited with me so we could get my bags and he could take me home. I was so lucky that he was on his week off. It was so nice to know that I could spend almost a whole week with him while I reacclimatize.
The mood upstairs was really nice and calm. After all of the craziness of the last hour there was complete calm in the air. NBN is again amazing and they had us in lines by last name with no more than 8 families per line. It was nice to be waiting around with all of the people from the flight just calmly waiting around and starting to process what we’d just done. It felt like I was in a private clubhouse sharing my afternoon with people who belonged to an exclusive group☺. It took me about 45 minutes of waiting and schmoozing to have my turn with the government official. NBN rocks and all of the paperwork was ready the minute I sat down. I received my Immigrant identification booklet, my cash (the government gives you money to help ease the absorption process) and the other documents I would need to open a bank account and set up health insurance etc. It took a grand total of 5 minutes. I grabbed a rugulach on my way back downstairs… it was amazingly delicious. I met David in baggage claim after setting up my appointment with the ministry of absorption to finish my processing next week. My bags all came off within about 5 minutes. Good thing David is in good shape because each of my bags was almost 70 pounds and there was no way I would have been able to lift them myself!!
We got all of the bags loaded into the car and starting heading to Jerusalem. I was tired but wired. In the car I felt so calm and at home. It’s a feeling I usually get when in the car with David. It was also nice to be driving through the countryside thinking that this was my country now and not just some place I came to visit. It felt so good that I almost started crying again.
We went into town to buy me a new cell phone. It was amazing. We were in and out of the cellcom store (including parking) in exactly an hour. And David also had to replace the battery on his phone! It was pretty much a world record. By then I was already really tired so we came back to his house where I caught up with his dad, vegged, ate something, and started to show David all of the things I’d been waiting 6 months to show him. Stupid things but its hard to be away for so long not being able to share even the stupid things!
We spent the next few hours doing a whole lot of nothing which felt great! I had wanted to watch a movie and ended falling asleep on the couch instead. Considering I hadn’t really slept in almost 2 days I didn’t mind. For dinner we decided to go into Jerusalem. We met up with his brother Ari and went to a place called Masryk on Emek Refaim (my soon to be new neighborhood) which is a personal favorite of mine. Our friend Yoni who had made aliyah a few weeks before came to join us and say hi. He was one of the friends whose job it was to stay in touch with me to make sure I made aliyah in the end. Thank you Yoni!
After our late dinner I wanted to drive to see my cousins. They were all leaving to various places and I wanted to make sure I had an opportunity to see them. They live about 20 minutes in the opposite direction from Jerusalem than David does, but he had a car and he loves me so he didn’t mind driving. My cousin Lia had just gotten home from a trip to Paris with some friends and she’s going into the army this week, Maya just got out of the army and was leaving in the morning to go be a staff member at camp, and Asher is leaving in a few weeks for a yearish in India after his army service. We sat around chatting with them for an hour or so and it was so nice. It was great to have to leave them and know that I would see them in a few weeks no matter what instead of having to wait years to hang out again. It was also nice to see them and my boyfriend getting along so well together and having so much in common. That’s one good thing about the army is that it’s a huge equalizer in the country. Turns out that one of Asher’s former soldiers is a good friend of Davids… Things like that make me happy. Its also great to see my boyfriend and my family liking each other and enjoying being together. It’s important to me that it not be a chore to be with my family.
That’s about it for my first day in Israel…it was crazy and emotional and long and I loved it. Absolutely loved it. I was so ready to continue my life as an Israeli after such a wonderful day.

Omigosh I’m an Israeli: (warning this part is really long)

After the taxiing that seemed to take forever we finally parked. We were in the middle of nowhere in the airport but we could see the bus full of press waiting to capture our first moments as Olim Chadashim (New Immigrants). I had two way too large backpacks so Sam, my older brother of the day, switched bags with me because he is just that nice. He’s moving into an ulpan place (along with half of the plane) that is around the corner from my new apartment! Once I stepped out of the plane it was like I was in a dream. I tried to smile as much as possible walking down the stairs because I knew photographs were being taken at every second. (It paid off too. Click here to see the picture: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123026) The only reason I might have not been smiling is that I was afraid I would slip on the stairs and fall into Israel. That would just be so me to do something like that.
Once I reached the ground I started jumping up and down screaming and hugging all of the girls I’d been sitting with. We had our picture taken a bajillion times and some of them were interviewed. Obviously I wasn’t interesting enough yet again, but it’s ok because the questions they asked were so annoying and I didn’t want to ruin my amazing mood. They asked things like “Why in the world would you want to live here?” etc. I mean I guess it’s an important question for Israelis who don’t understand how lucky they are to live here and who take for granted that it’s not as easy to be Jewish anywhere else in the world. They also take for granted that they have no idea what it feels like to live as a “stranger” in another country and to always be in the minority. The longing to be part of the majority is one of the main reasons I felt I had to live here.
After about 7 minutes of dancing around I got really hot. We landed in the middle of a heat wave and were standing on the tarmac next to a massive plane with no shade. We moved onto the bus, which thankfully was air-conditioned!! As we were driving around the airport to get to the old terminal I don’t remember thinking much of anything. I was so excited and nervous and tired that I just couldn’t feel anything. I was vaguely aware that I was going to be seeing David in less than a few minutes for the first time in 6 months, but it wasn’t until I could see the building and the huge crowd waiting that my heart really started racing. I feel so lucky that I ended up on the first bus because the crowd was still semi-orderly and once we got off things broke into a mad rush of hugging, crying, cheering, and a massive blur of activity that is overwhelming. I also got really lucky because I saw David just as the doors were opening. He came in uniform and our friend who was also in uniform was friends with the officer in charge of organizing all of the soldiers at the welcoming ceremony so they got to be at the very front before all of the other civilians.
I stepped off the bus and made a beeline to him. I dropped one of my huge bags at his feet and gave him a huge hug. After that I felt like I went into a warped world. I was only conscious of what was directly in front of my face. I was vaguely aware that there was music playing and people cheering—it was so overwhelming that my senses shut down. Next I saw Aunt Marilyn. I went to give her a hug and she was crying (and obviously I immediately broke down too). She was so proud of me and happy for me and so happy that finally after 34 years of being alone away from her family on the other side of the world she had someone else who had followed her that she was close to. She has made amazing friends here that act like family, but it isn’t the same as having members of your real family close together. She is one of the main reasons I knew that I could make this move. Not only did she move here 34 years ago when she could speak to her parents for maybe once a month-ish and it was crazy expensive, she also knew she wanted to be here after only 6 weeks! She’s also the one who helped me make a plan and get the courage to break the news to my parents that I wouldn’t be finishing college in the states and I was moving to Israel. I owe so much to her (and her family) for their constant hospitality over the years and constantly making me feel at home with them. I don’t think I would have had the courage without their support. Seeing them at the airport was so special for me and hopefully I will be able to see them often.
Once I calmed down from that I noticed that I hadn’t said hi to my friends yet! They were all on the same program this summer and had to get up around 6am to catch a bus to take them to the airport so they could come see me. That is such a big deal!! It was so early and I am so happy they could all come and share my aliyah with me. One friend I hadn’t seen since I had left Midreshet Lindenbaum 2 years ago. It was a wonderful reunion!! Then I noticed my friend Craig! (one of my best friends from UT) He is also in Israel for the summer and he had told me that he probably wasn’t going to be able to come. I was in complete shock at seeing him and so excited that he also made the huge effort to see me land!
I had finally started to calm down when yet ANOTHER huge shock came. Tova and Rav Brown, heads of the Midreshet Lindenbaum American program I was on, were ALSO there to see me. I was so surprised and grateful that I broke down sobbing again. They had always promised us that if we made aliyah they would be at the airport to pick us up. I didn’t realize that they were seriously serious, and I couldn’t remember if I had officially notified them of my date of arrival so it was one of the most pleasant surprises I could have ever asked for. They also played a huge role in my decision to make aliyah and it meant a lot that they could be there to see me through. Not only did they give me one of the most amazing years of my life, but they also have taken me in numerous times on extended visits over the past few years. They gave me a place to stay, food, classes, and love and encouragement all for free just because I was an alum of their program. Their support gave me the opportunity to spend more extended time in Israel and really helped foster my love for this country and my determination to move here.
This was definitely a day of surprises! I hadn’t even finished getting over the fact that Tova and Rav Brown were there when I noticed family friends from home, the Levys were also there!! I sent them an email with my flight information knowing that they’d be in Israel on the off chance that they could fit me into their schedule. I fully did not expect them to take time out of their vacation to schlep out to the airport at a ridiculously early time…and was just so unbelievably touched that they did!
Once I calmed down from all of the excitement outside I was able to give David another hug and realized once again that I was burning up so we decided to move inside. In the interest of time I’m going to write a separate post about what happened once we entered the terminal. Dun dun dun…

The Flight

Once I got onto the plane my fear turned into excitement. I started chatting with some of the people seated near me and really started to calm down. It turns out that the nbn staff are geniuses!! They set up the seating on the plane by categories to ensure that people would meet others in their same situation who would relate to each other and start a network of friends even before landing in Israel. A super perk was that the families with little babies were in the back and the young singles were in the front of the plane!!! I did not sleep one wink on the flight. I had a middle seat open next to me and I shared it with Polina my row buddy so I was comfortable… but there were just so many people to talk to and so many things to say that there simply wasn’t time to sleep. Every time I tried I would get too excited and start talking to someone or start smiling because I was so excited!! The hours of the trip ticked by SO slowly! We kept turning on the flight path screen hoping to see that more time had passed… we were lucky if even half an hour had gone by between checks. A much anticipated break from the monotony of the flight came with the start of in-flight processing. I had thought it was going to take at least half an hour to fill out all of the computerized forms so I figured it would help pass time on the flight. Sadly (yet amazingly, proving again just how awesome nbn is) all I had to do was sign 4 things, correct the spelling of my last name, and check that all of the information that they had previously entered was correct. It took a grand total of 45 seconds. I was still really really excited that I was filling out my aliyah paperwork and had Polina take pictures. The next bit of excitement came when they announced that for the first time ever they were going to process passport control while we were still on the air. We had to dig up our passports and hand them to a dude with a big plastic bag—I thought it was a bit sketchy but I knew that they knew what they were doing.
About two hours before the end of the flight I started getting antsy. I was hungry (they fed us less than a hour into the flight and it had been almost 8 hours since I’d had anything to eat), I was bored, and all I wanted to do was land in Israel and actually finish making aliyah! At the hour and a half mark they finally served breakfast which was pleasantly not disgusting. Once the meal was over I couldn’t sit still. We had less than an hour left until landing and I was so excited. Everyone began brushing their teeth, changing out of their plane pajamas, and excitedly walking up and down the aisles. Forty minutes until landing the nbn staff passed out the “oleh” stickers and nbn hats that we were supposed to wear to the airport to differentiate us from the guests. I had been waiting over a year for the day when I would be the one to wear the oleh sticker. I was so excited. We were literally bouncing around the plane with excitement. A bunch of us even took pictures in the hats we will most likely never wear again to commemorate the moment. On a last bathroom stop just as the flight crew were begging everyone to settle down for landing, I started talking to a man who was making aliyah with his wife. They both had on matching Bubbie and Zaidie shirts and were going to move near their 11 grandchildren. I think it’s such an amazing thing that even at such a late stage in life people are picking up their lives and moving to Israel. It is so inspiring.
We all finally sat down and buckled up with less than 20 minutes to go. I was glued to the window (by now I was excited about my window seat) searching for my first glimpse of Israel. I almost started crying when I saw the first stretches of Israel beaches and started recognizing the buildings all throughout Tel Aviv. We kept turning to each other saying things like “this is it” and “ I can’t believe we’re REALLY doing this” or “It’s really happening” and smiling and laughing uncontrollably. The entire flight we spoke about how we couldn’t believe that any of this was actually happening and how the whole thing felt surreal. That’s still the best way I can describe this whole experience. It’s something I’ve wanted for so long and talked about and thought about and dreamt about and now that it’s finally here it’s very hard to grasp.
As we neared the airport cheesy music came on like “od yavoh shalom aleinu” and “yachad” I felt like I was at summer camp. It was so cheesy that it was a little embarrassing but I loved it anyway. When we landed I clapped with everyone else and couldn’t stand to remain seated. We taxied for a long time and we were all trying to figure out where in the world we were going. I was expecting an outdoor welcoming ceremony so I was looking for the pavilion… Turns out that they changed the format and instead of having the ceremony on the tarmac as we came off the plane, they had it at the old terminal where we go through processing anyway and just bussed us from the plane to the party.
I’m going to leave the story hanging now and I’ll write about what it was like to actually be on the ground as soon as I can!

The Day Of

When I officially got up on Monday morning the way to describe how I felt: nauseas. That’s one of those feelings that sort of takes over and pushes out everything else. All other thought and feeling goes out the window. I showered and put on a cute outfit (so not me but hey there were going to be cameras everywhere!!) that even made Nathan proud. Grabbed some orange juice because I was too nervous and nauseas to eat…thanks mom for telling me that on an empty nervous stomach OJ was probably a bad idea!
I got to talk to seth in the car on the way to the airport. He’s been great about clandestinely using his cell phone to call from camp over the past few weeks and wanted to make sure he could say goodbye. After that serious nausea set it. I asked my parents to stop talking to me and couldn’t even talk to david!! We got to the airport super early which is fine because I can’t even imagine how nervous I would have been if we’d gotten stuck in traffic or anything. The nefesh b nefesh (nbn) people hadn’t set up their desk yet so I had time to get over my nerves a bit. Check in was surprisingly easy. They had assigned us seats in advance (I got a window…bummer) so they would know where we were to make the documentation process in flight easier. All I had to do was take my ticket, scan my bags, and get a boarding pass. I was ridiculously high strung and snapped at my parents like there’s no tomorrow but in reality it was a pretty painless process.
The flight went out of the same terminal (and even the same gate) as my flight to spend my senior year in Israel. I felt overwhelmed with déjà vu at every turn and then we sat in the same spot to wait for the flight where we waited 3 years ago. After about 10 minutes sitting there I had to move. For whatever reason I felt negative about being in the exact same spot maybe as if I wasn’t really doing anything beyond going away for a little or maybe because it was just making me sad and forcing me to think about the last time I drastically left my parents to be so far away. Mom and I went into the duty free and we sent dad to the bookstore because he hates the overwhelming smell of the perfumes. I thought maybe I would buy something small for David, but I quickly understood what my dad felt and the fumes mixed with my nerves were a bad combination. It was really rough sitting there with my parents for our last hours together for a few months. I felt like we had said everything there was to be said about loving each other and missing each other and since I would get my phone shortly after arrival it wasn’t like we wouldn’t be speaking and communicating multiple times a day soon anyway. But at the same time I had a hard time looking at them. I love them and miss them terribly but we all knew that this is something I’ve been needing to do for a long time. I know they don’t think I abandoned them or ran away from them but standing there in the airport waiting felt like waiting for an execution. It seemed ridiculous to be there with them and tell them that I’m not abandoning them mere hours before I was going to get on a plane and do (it felt then) just that. Fortunately nbn is a pro at the whole aliyah thing. They had a ceremony which was a bit disappointing but at least it was a distraction for a good 45 minutes! Nathan also came to say goodbye. He took off work to come be with me and my parents for a bit.. I don’t know if I told him properly, if I was even capable of saying it then how much it meant to me that he took off work and schlepped both ways to jfk to be with me for barely 2 hours. I think it also helped me be able to be normal slightly because I was also thinking about leaving friends instead of worrying about my parents. Funny that I thought to worry. They are going to be fine, they were fine long before I came around to take care of them. Hopefully seth and dad will make a concerted effort to reduce sports time to be with mom so she doesn’t feel lonely but other than that I know life will go on in the Medvin house as usual and when I come to visit things will be wonderfully and peacefully exactly as I left them.
The entire process at the airport was being filmed and photographed for nbn purposes as well as general press. Mom joked that we weren’t interviewed or anything because we weren’t interesting enough. Some people had large dogs or infants or were 87…I was just a young woman moving away from my parents- nothing abnormal about that. The second I started crying I became more interesting than I probably would have liked. I was saying goodbye to Nathan we were both crying and the next thing I know he laughs into my ear “ we’re being filmed by the way”. Knowing that I was being filmed was probably the worst way to ruin a completely honest and heartfelt goodbye. Fortunately I didn’t realize the camera men were there until we were almost finished! They must have really liked the sight of me crying because as soon as I moved to leave my parents I had a whole flock of them watching. I tried to hide my face from the camera as much as possible because all I wanted to do was concentrate on them and not the fact that this might end up being memorialized in a promotional video for the next 5 years! Saying goodbye to them was awful. I don’t know if there’s any other word to describe it. I knew that once I got settled on the plane or in Israel with david I would be ok but the actual leaving saying goodbye and I love you one last time and turning around to walk through security was agonizing. I hope that this is the last time I will have to do that with them. Hopefully for the rest of my life we will be together often enough that I won’t have this huge feeling of dread and anguish when I have to leave them. I stopped crying in the security line but I almost started again when I saw that they were waiting and watching me so they could see me until I disappeared for real. As I was walking to the plane lugging two backpacks with a combined weight of way too much I was going down the terminal with a random nbn employee. He didn’t say anything to me didn’t really have any reason to but I felt bitter and angry toward him that here I was lugging heavy bags (he was carrying things also) and sniffling and he didn’t have any comforting words. In the end I’m glad he didn’t say anything because I probably would have resented his words and wished he had left me alone with my sadness and slowly growing excitement. What could he have said anyway? Nothing that everyone else hadn’t said to me before. I felt like I was walking down a deserted hallway to uncertainty and was really scared. Really scared. I knew this is what I wanted but it didn’t change the fact that I was petrified of the change and of what finally choosing a life would mean.

Before

I’ve been planning to make aliyah for over two years. It took almost an entire year of intense planning, organizing, and applying. I had to apply for 7 different things in the proper order, which took FOREVER. I never actually thought the time would come when I would move to Israel for real.
At the end of fall semester I left UT to move back home to get a job and spend time with my family. I worked at Shefa Bakery as a mashgiach and did a whole lot of nothing. I told myself that I was going to use the time to go through my room and close up my life in America properly so I could move on knowing that I had taken care of everything I could possibly need. Obviously I didn’t use my time very wisely and I spent most of the time taking advantage of my netflix subscription.
Up until a couple of months ago everything seemed completely normal (except for the fact that I was living at home again): I worked and vegged and begged Seth to hang out with me. I kept up with all of my applications, but I didn’t really get ready to move. I did shop a lot. Mom and I did a ton of shopping. For whatever reason I shopped as if I couldn’t buy anything in Israel. Really I did it because it’s a recreational activity that Mom and I do together and if I end up with some cute stuff at the end it’s a perk ☺
Seth left for camp a little under 3 weeks ago and that’s when things really started to sink in that I was ACTUALLY leaving. I spent an entire day sitting with Seth in my room going through all of my old junk. I worked for literally 8 hours and hardly scratched the surface of what I needed to get done. It was emotionally hard to sift through my entire childhood, but at least I had some real quality time with Seth.
The few days leading up to his departure I was a wreck. I had been talking about moving for so long but had pretty much ignored the part that meant I had to leave my family so far behind. Also I spend two evenings watching Seth play playstation because I was so devastated that I wouldn’t be living across the hall from him anymore. I was good and didn’t cry when he left but it was an emotional blow that I was not prepared for.
Once he was gone and all of his things packed I went into hyper packing mode. I had under a month to pack up almost all of my material possessions into 4 suitcases and a little box. I was torn between wanting to pack everything and get it ready because I was so nervous I wouldn’t have enough time to get everything done and needing to keep things in my room since I wasn’t leaving for 3 weeks.
My last few weeks at home turned into a blur. I slowly moved everything out of my room and into the dinning room where we usually stage large packing operations. I could only do a little bit each day before I started to get emotional and figured I had enough time to wait. Fortunately my mother is amazing and helped motivate me to get everything finished. While I was physically going through the motions of moving it didn’t feel like I was actually leaving. Mom, Dad, and I kind of ignored it and just went on with our routine until occasionally one of us brought it up. I have to give my parents a lot of credit: There is no way in the world that it is easy or exciting for them to have me live so far away yet they have been nothing but supportive the entire process. They never stop telling me how proud of me they are and how much they love me. They always had tears behind their eyes when others would congratulate them and get excited but they smiled and moved on and focused only on how happy this move will make me.
Even when we left the house and went to New York I didn’t feel like I was really moving. (Saying goodbye to ginger was rough mostly because I can’t communicate with her from here and let her know that I love her and didn’t abandon her or anything.) I had sat through my goodbye bbq talking to everyone nonstop about leaving but it still felt like I would see them every week for the foreseeable future. My goodbye dinner in New York felt much the same. I was with my friends and relatives from the greater NY area who I hadn’t seen in a long time so it didn’t feel like anything special to visit people I love while on a trip to their area. I even fell asleep right away the night before the flight because I was so tired. I hadn’t been able to fall asleep right away for almost 3 weeks!
It was a short lived triumph because I woke up at around 4am and started agonizing about all of the many trivial things that suddenly seemed more important than life itself that I would have to do before, during, and after the flight. It was one of those times that I’m grateful that David lives in a drastically different time zone because he was able to calm me down significantly. Of course I wasn’t able to fall back to sleep but at least I was relaxed!!