Warning: I get kind of sappy when I reminisce

Believe it or not, it has been a whole year since I moved here and started sending these emails. Crazy, right?

I was reminiscing a bit this week, helped in part by my four friends that just made aliyah on Wednesday. I went to greet them at the airport, and even though they had a much more impressive ceremony than I did, it was still a weird flashback. It feel pretty cool to be able to help them and talk to them about all the fears and worries and technicalities that plague new olim. Its kind of weird to realize that I am now the experienced one, despite the fact that it all still feels like a new adventure.

I was thinking about going back and talking about how I feel differently and what things no longer bother me and what things I have found that I love. But it came out kind of silly. Because the truth is, what I am figuring out more and more every day is that it doesnt matter if the banks charge you for everything or if theres not good cheddar cheese here or even if the army has lost me in their maze of paperwork and left me at a job where I dont really do anything.

Because last night I had a party celebrating my aliyahversary and I was surrounded by friends. I had old friends, and friends that are really family, and friends I barely know, and friends I have made in the past year. And they all came for me, they came because they are proud of me or support me, or just wanted to hang out with me. And that is all that really matters.

This was a hard year, I have told you some of it, but the worst moments never quite made it into email form. But I can look back and see where it started to change, where I started to be happier and feel more fulfilled, and it was when I- how did Ron put it- built a community of people around me that I care about. And that care about me. The hardest thing to leave was you- all of you that care about me and that I care about. And a year later, I can say that that circle has grown to include the geographic area in which I now reside :)