The way of walking

I’ve officially been home for three months; it’s totally unbelievable that it’s been that long already. So much has happened; so much has changed that I can hardly keep track of it all. I’ve been working for almost a month, I’ve been commuting into the city, I’ve started looking for a new apartment, I’ve been testing boundaries, I’ve been questioning past assumptions. I have in short grown an unbelievable amount. I was thinking about what I’ve done since I graduated college and about what my friends have done and I was thinking about how we’ve all begun to make real decisions about our lives. Some of us have focused on our careers; some have gone back to school choosing to make a large investment into their future careers or looking to open new doorways in a given field. Others like me have taken the first few post college years for personal development; have chosen to focus a little more inwardly. I believe all paths are valid and all have had their own pluses and minuses.

Post College life should after all be for many the first opportunity we’ve had to really blaze our own trail. I mean for me it was the first time when there was no ‘logical’ next step, no simply given next thing to pursue. When you grow up you go to elementary school, then middle, the high school. After that most of us do the college thing, in college most people are just trying to get out, four necessary years of your life to just get over with and move on from there. But after college what now? I mean you’ve just spent the last twenty two or so years of your life trying to grow up. Wanting to be able to make your own decisions to set your own priorities and now that you’ve got that little piece of paper you can at long last! But that excitement quickly wears off as the reality hits you and many are left scared and confused. This is a natural thing, after I graduated I spent that first summer doing odd jobs, making a little money and generally doing my best to avoid making any real decisions. I regret nothing, I needed sometime to sort myself out and after I had it I took off in a direction what direction? I didn’t even matter it was somewhere and for me at the time that was enough. As it turned out I got caught up learning about Judaism and needed some time to explore that and I had and continue to have that opportunity. It was and is important to me to find something that gives my life context. It is an important thing before one starts to live, to live fully and ecstatically and I don’t think one can do that until they find that, maybe I’m wrong I’m willing to consider it. But I don’t think I am, it’s becoming more and more obvious to me now, now that I’m back where I was before.

When I left New York the first time I left not because I was unhappy but because I had an itch to scratch. Because I needed to see what this whole thing meant to me, because I was unsure why I was doing what I was doing and that scared me. I needed clarity and at least on this one point I have definitely got it. I now know why I’m working, why I’m going where I am (even if I’m not entirely sure where that is) and I know I wouldn’t have gotten that if I hadn’t left. Mark Twain said “when I was eighteen I thought my father a fool, after a few years I was surprised to find out how much the man had learned.” Which is just kind of a clever way of says sometimes a little age and experience can go a long way. His father after all had gotten no wiser, he himself had, he had grown up and he could now see the wisdom of his father that he had previously been unable to. I feel that way about my maniac mitzvah.

At the time I was unsure about my chosen path i.e. living in New York, becoming more religious, working, etc. Now that I’m home I feel confident in doing more or less exactly what I was doing before my paranoia about it is much more subdued it hasn’t gone but it tempered by a wisdom I didn’t possess a year ago. I now feel much more confident in my pursuits; much more grounded by them, funny how life can happen like that. Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving Weekend everyone. Shalom Alechem.