Feelin' Groovy

So I'm back in America, I've had a few days to decompress , to sort out my thoughts, etc. And to be honest I'm still not sure what to say, its weird being here, I hadn't realized how much I'd come to see my world though the lens of Israeli culture. I feel in many ways that in the last year I shed much of my attachment to America culture and life. At the same time I reamin fundamentally American in mentality I can't escape it. I miss Israel, I miss the rude people and the terrible service. I miss the rolling hills and that sparkle Jerusalem has at night that I've never been able to find anywhere else. I feel isolated in many ways I've spent the last year learning about being and living Jewishly. And without realized it I'd come to expect for everyone around me to feel the same way. Now I'm surrounded my the goyim, the other nations and its strange. Here I'm not surround my people who are searching for something beyond what you can see with your eyes, here I'm in the land on concielment. And I'm scared, its pain and simple. Now I'm in an extreme minority, and I have to justify every little aspect of my daily existance. Questions about my mundane activities are prevelent. Some people here think I've 'drank the kool aid' and frankly maybe I have. I know that I never would have thought I'd end up here three years ago. Never would have been able to accept the idea or god and the Torah being infinate and inchangable. Now its a reality that I've accepted and in many ways exbraced. And that means inevitable conflict I know that I can't stay where I am and so I'm moving on. Heading to a better environment for myself on Sunday, going up to New York, staying at a yeshiva until I can find a job and a place. I know I can't ever live with my parents again. Its hard to think that in many ways I'll never be able to go back, back to the days of innosense when I was just learning, just curious about my heritage. Thats the preblem sometimes after a while you start to see it as a better alternative. I've been asked countless times already 'what do you see in this? Why do you feel the need to do all this?' I wish I had a good answer. I in many ways have no good answer. Except to say that me and my friends spend all of high school and college bitching and complaining and discussing how much mainstream American culture sucked. Spent countless hours and days thinking of ways to distance ourselves from it and how we could best distance ourselves from it while also taking advantage of it. And I did something about all those discussions. I sought something better something more meaningful and less empty. For me Judiasm, was that alternative. In won't be for everyone but it is for me. It's what makes sense for me. I feel that a life filtered though the wisdom and gudiance of Torah can and will lead me to a fulfilling life, for me. I'm not trying to say it will be for anyone else but it is for me. I know thats in many ways selfish. That in my search of meaning and contentment I'm going along a path that few have tread and that few could ever imagine stepping foot on. So be it. I know that my journey down this path isn't going to be easy, if it was easy it wouldn't be worth doing. But I know that for me its correct, I'm not trying to speak for anyone else just for me. And thats where I am right here right now, right at this moment. Like I've said before this maniac mitzvah is far from over, in fact I think its just begun. Shalom in the home from Jersey, Jersey, Jersey.