But still I want to grow
The change outside will only come
When deep inside I know
I’m beautiful
And capable
Of being the best me I can
And I love myself
Just the way that I am
(This is a song we used to sing when I was a little girl at the Church of Science and Mind with Doctor Tom)
It is time to talk about change, and life and all those great things.
Funny thing. I was just looking at these pictures that my mom took of me on my birthday last year. And I swear to god the girl in those pictures is not the same me that is hear today. OK it is me. It is a facet of me. But god knows it is not the me here and now. First of all I look so tiny and so young and so pure but somehow empty. Not that I am not pure now, but there is something missing in my eyes that is here now. And I look like a girl.
My journey of life has just begun. I know that. And maybe if you are reading this and you are older, you might laugh that such a young person is writing that I have grown so in one year, but I have.
As an example of physical growth, you would never believe how ridiculous my glasses look on me now. I had them for over 2 years and yet, when I put then on, I can hardly stand how I look. They don’t fit me at all anymore. And truly I thought I would have then forever.
But the times they are a changin’
This past Shabbat I met a few people that moved to Israel. There are so many reasons that people come here. For some people they come because they see it as the only way out of a horrible situation.
For us more lucky ones it is different. All three people I spoke with came from countries and situations that were “better” than the life they have in Israel. They all said how they had such made lives in the US/Sweden/England. Good jobs, partying, college, friends, apartments. But somehow something was missing.
“I wanted to be challenged” said a boy from London who is in an elite unit in the army.
Life here is a challenge. Everyday it is. Everyday I am learning and growing and seeing things I had never seen before. And I am putting myself in new situations that I might not have if I was still at home.
Adversity is like a strong wind. I don’t mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterwards we see ourselves as we really are, not merely as we might like to be. -memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
