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!!