November

Wow, I can't believe it has been 11 months since my last blog post. More than that really. Today I completed the Book of Our Heritage series and I feel wonderful about having completed that. I found the series to be rather challenging on a number of levels, and that adds to the greatness of the accomplishment. Mostly I am happy I completed it because I am able to now have a better understanding of the history behind cultural traditions, prayers, and other such things. I enjoy all of these things, and I especially enjoy them as it comes to traditions I wish to make my own. I am going to attempt to post here far more often than I have been, as I am now also maintaining a professional blog and I think that this blog can be a nice complement to that...assuming I still have a readership and that people are still interested in the personal topics I blog on, and/or any political content I may decide to add.

Speaking of politics, how about that election? I can't wait for Obama to get out of the White House!

Happy New Year?

Happy New Year to me right? I received a phone call today asking me to go and look at my Facebook wall, and low and behold a post from my ex-husband's mother, where she said the following, "Rebecca please stop your constant harassing calls to your ex and to our neighbors. Your calls are doing you no good. Your children are not being kept from speaking to you. The children have told us under no pressure that they do not want to talk to you. That is their choice. You need to honor their request putting... their desires above your needs. Respectfully, Helen"

To Which I replied with the below quoted reply. Of course I wanted to address that there is no respect intended in her reply, nor does she really have a clue about what she is speaking. One divorces spouses not children. Furthermore the children will tell people whatever they think the person wants to hear. I reported the incident to Facebook as cyberbullying and threatening/abusive behavior.

"Helen please stop harassing me, as I have done nothing to you but be nice and kind. I don't appreciate you make you accusations that are unfounded, and I would appreciate it if you would stay out of things that don't involve you, or would at least have the courtesy to answer the phone when I call."

Moving forward?

I am trying to move forward as a new decade comes into being, a new decade in which I will turn 40 and I don't wish to continually be plagued with the sufferings of the past. So, it is my hope that I will be reunited with my children in the coming year, that I will be able to find peace with myself, and that I can find the freedom I so desperately need. Freedom from what you might ask?

One of the first reactions I got when I said I wanted to convert was, "You know you will have to give up your family" My reply to this was, "Thank God where do I sign" the Frumie who said this to me I guarantee you this did NOT expect that answer!

I have been trying to find freedom from the bondage I have been in to the events of 2007, and I thought I could do it by asking for explanations. I have had people give me a hard time regarding my lack of relationship with my mother, however I asked my mother for an apology and have yet to get one. Now I ask for an explanation and I get "Rebecca, out of my deep and abiding love for you, I do not answer Love, Mom" Needless to say this is vindication to me that I was never part of my birth family, and I seek freedom from these people and their bullshit.

Partly what attracts me to Judaism is that I have very little prior connection to it, so it is a place I have the freedom to invent myself and be myself without fear of the past coming back to haunt me. It gives me the chance to connect with my past in positive ways for my future and to shed the aspects of myself that aren't really mine. In a sense it gives me back my humanity and dignity with the way life is held so high, and humanity and dignity. Where else do you find it written that our mission is to repair the world, or if you save a life you save the world and if you destroy a life you destroy the world? No other sacred texts say things like this. I find this to be very beautiful and I only hope that my addition to the nation someday will honor it and allow this mission to have a great ability to do this.

My goals for the next decade are the following, and in no particular order.

I want to live a happy life free of the burdens from the past and the demons that now haunt me.
I want to expand my family both by being reunited with my children that I miss terribly and that I know miss me, but also by adding children to my family.
I want to go to graduate school and find degrees that compliment my background and experience, while allowing me to pursue my ultimate goal of becoming a professor.
I would like to become a professor this decade.
I would like to have my new family formed and around me, and to not have any interactions with former family members that betrayed my children and myself.
I want to finalize my conversion to Judaism this decade.
I want to publish my book about my divorce.
Last, but not least I want the American dream of a house and dogs, with my husband and to continue to nurture and enrich our relationship. He's so perfect it scares me sometimes.

I have been so blessed to be embraced by this community and by some members of my former community that value me. I want to resolve my identity issues and the other issues I have now because of the damage done to my soul, and if possible I want to heal my soul. I want healing for my children as well of course, but I can't heal their wounds no matter how hard I try.

I am working on revising my book and I may or may not post excerpts in the future for feedback. I am afraid to open my life up again.

Shalom from Brooklyn....M-I

Fall

I find it hard to believe winter is on the way again, much closer than we think it is really. Oddly enough I have chosen this time to recreate myself, and am praying fervently for success. I feel like a complete failure as I sit here writing this post, after all it is an obscene hour here and I should be sleeping. I had a great job interview last week for a day job that I could do while working on getmearealjob.com and my own Mary Kay business. However, as is the story of my professional life, due to budget cuts the position can no longer be filled.

There are additional problems to be addressed of course, there always are and I am so very tired. I want some normalcy, I know that is asking for too much but I really want to live a quiet life where I can feel safe and know that there will be enough money to survive, I don't have to be extravagant, but I would like to have my kids back, and a house, and a dog or maybe 2 dogs they seem to be like children in that they do much better with another being of their own kind.

I don't know what to do with these challenges as nothing seems to curb my anxiety. Sometimes I feel as if I will die if the anxiety doesn't disipate, and sometimes I feel as if I am already dead and gone. I feel 900 years old most days....life is good don't get me wrong, but I don't understand why everything must be so challenging.

Wow, has it really been 2 months since I last posted? I guess I rarely have anything to say anymore. I want to file a lawsuit but am having trouble getting a lawyer to take the case. It's just a crazy time I guess.

Well since the last post here I have gotten married and fall is upon us. Fall is a time of year I have always despised. It is great because of the colors etc, however I hate it because of the fact that it leads to winter and the reminders of winter are all around us. I moved here hoping that things would be very different than they are, although they are decent and I can't complain too much there are areas where it is just not up to snuff. I am trying to fix that of course, but who knows. Additionally, I am looking at going back to school.

I can't believe it has been so long since my last post. So much has happened since that last post! For those of you that are wondering what happened at the airport he did in fact show up, despite my complete terror that he would not show up at all. I had convinced myself that he wasn't going to show up and I was trying to figure out how I would explain to my friends why he didn't show up. That's because of the history we share of course. Anyway, he came in for the weekend and decided he couldn't leave me and we are getting married.

This brings me to the next part of my post and the primary reason that I have for posting. We met on Tuesday with our conversion tutor for the first time. Hopefully she'll be able to work with us, she was very nice and really appreciated where we were coming from, and she and I hit it off a lot which is fantastic because so few women seem to hit it off with me in my life.

We weren't exactly sure what to expect but it was a really great visit, and things seem to be moving along nicely on the topic, although we still have a lot of questions about what we want to do that will need to be answered in time, it is so early that it is difficult for things to be worked out.

Reunion

In a few hours I will be going to the airport to pick up the greatest love I have ever known. This is a reunion that has been 10 years in the making at least, I think maybe even more than that and I find myself strangely calm and also strangely terrified. I told him that his being a non-Jew will seriously fuck up the plans I am making for my own life if we decide to have a relationship, so he said he would be willing to convert and started reading about all kinds of Jewish topics. I was really surprised by that, but then again he says I am the love of his life and he came back from the desert just for me.