Emotional Overload...

Some days are fantabulous, some make me wanna stick my head in the toilet, and others leave me feeling both.  Sometimes it feels like so much is going on, as though events are swirling in tornado-like winds with no end in sight.  Sometimes, I just need my Auntie M!

Let’s see.  The kids have all started school, making this our very first experience with the Israeli school system.  I’m grateful that none of them are entering pivotal school years (like senior year) so there’s an ounce less pressure there.  We saw our 8^th and 10^th graders off yesterday, our 11^th grader today, and by the time the hubby and I left our youngest’s 5^th grade class this morning, I was in tears.  Not hysterics, but tears of, well, I don’t know what. My baby is no longer a baby.  That cute, curious, dirty blond, curly haired child is taller than I and in the 5^th grade.  By the time we left his class I think the newness of everything had run up and bit me.  It was a mother moment I imagine many can relate to.

Things have settled down some since the protest insanity, but emotions are still running high.  We attended the opening ceremony, if you will, of the girls’ school (around the corner from our youngest) today and watched as things remained largely uneventful.  I have never seen the military on the first day of school, nor as many little girls it’s-the-first-day-of-school-do-you-like-my-new-shoes giddy faces.  A member of the Knesset spoke as well as the Rosh Yeshiva of Shaalei Torah (the head rabbi of this particular school system).  There were brief speeches, encouraging words, and an emphasis on venturing through the school year with G-D, Torah, Ahavat Yisrael (respect and love for other Jews), modesty, and faith.  It was a beautiful morning topped off by the singing of HaTikva (Israel’s National Anthem) and positive energy.  It still sickens me that all the hoopla happened and that so much reparation continues to be needed, but at least it was a good first day.

And then my work machinery freaked out!  The printer it seems, didn’t make it as successfully to Israel as say, the couches, and that makes me so very sad.  And frustrated.  And like I need a drink and a truck load of chocolate.  The phone keeps losing its VOIP connection and is taking my mind with it.  My e-mail receives messages from outside the network but can’t reciprocate.  Some times I think the computer gods have a vendetta against me.  And sometimes, I lose the energy to fight them.  Can I have some more chocolate now?

Oh yeah, a little more 'bout the kids.  Two of four think they like their schools, and the other two think their school is for ‘whack jobs.’  How quaint.  They are in a school for kids with ADHD, but not everyone ‘does’ their diagnosis quite the same.  And not every parent of children with said diagnosis will demand, despite gender, medication, and very real neuronal issues, that they best act like human beings if they want to enjoy the finer things in life.  I don’t do the ‘boys will be boys’ nonsense.  My boys will be big boys if they want to continue to be boys in this house, ADHD be damned!  I know that some days are really hard for them and that impulse control is not always a barrel of laughs.  But it pains me to hear that one of them was mooned today, that the other allowed the worst of his lack of impulse control to run amuck, and that everybody’s favorite four letter word can be heard ad nauseum.  Before you say, “But it’s Israel!  But it’s a religious school!”  remember that impulse control and bad manners don’t care what religion you are or where you live.  I wonder, if our problems can ignore boundaries, perhaps those at the heart of our protests can too?  

And then I realized that 9/11 is around the corner.  Like so many, I remember where I was when I heard the news, how I panicked about loved ones, and how I frantically called the East Coast to make sure they were all OK.  Occassional bouts of homesickness are now mixed with a pseudo desire to be in the States on 9/11/11, though I’m not at all sure what I think I’m going to miss by being here.  I felt the attacks far more as a Jew then an American, but seeing the American flag in the breeze touched my heart immeasurably.  I know that Israel will have footage and its own memorial programming; She certainly understands, all too well in fact, what it’s like to be attacked and exposed in naked vulnerability.  I suppose it all reminds me of my personal beliefs about where ’home’ is.  My home was “there” for so many years but I always knew that my HOME was ‘here.’ Sometimes my heart cries out for home while my soul convincingly reminds me that the US was but a path to this Land.  

I heard a song a few days ago by Carrie Underwood (WOW, can that girl sing!!) that spoke to (or sang to…) my thoughts about ‘home.’ I think I’ve always known where my home was, but was too afraid to acknowledge it.  Now I know… and that gives all the other stresses reasons to suffer through them.  There’s no place like HOME.  Take a listen.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LraOiHUltak