Poems and Thoughts of Israel

It's nearing one a.m. and I just spent the past hour and a half finishing a book of Hebrew poetry.

I don't know.

I've been wanting to finish it for a while, and now I need to reread it because I'm so tired that I'm not sure what stuck and what didn't.

But what did stick was beautiful. I really like this book, almost as much as Hazel loves An Imperial Affliction.

But I suddenly thought about going to visit Israel - this Wednesday as it happens - and I'm terrified as hell, honestly. How different will it feel? Will my happiness fade again? Where will I be after going back to that place?

I've forgotten so much, honestly I have. I had forgotten, until today, how the streets in Tel Aviv connect and how it felt to be there and being away from my friends and everything. It hurt, and I think I forgot that a little. Suddenly I remember all these things from the evening I got this book of poetry signed and how good I felt that night, and being close to my family, and having Hebrew all around me.

I'm kind of alarmed at how much this trip crept up on me. It was always kind of in the near future and all but never really this close. In seventy-two hours I'll already be there or close at least. It's scaring me. Deja vu to this time last year, before I changed.

But how much did I stay the same?

I don't know right now. I don't know anything right now.

Things you like to do

I heard somewhere that you can choose what you do, but you can't choose what you like to do.

This may be obvious to some, but to me it was an entirely new idea. For a long time I'd had these love-hate relationships with things in my life such as music and dance. Many people love them, but I didn't. I thought if I worked hard at them, I would love them. But no. There are some things I simply don't like. It was kind of hard for me to accept that.

Because my whole life I'd felt like there were things I should like and things I shouldn't, based on what other people liked or didn't. There are things that are hard to let go of. It was just as hard as letting go of a façade or breaking a tradition I'd had for my whole life. It's difficult, but after that it feels like things suddenly got easier.