Upcoming Trip to Haifa – November, 2014

Getting ready for my visit to Haifa.  Not only did I never think I’d ever get to go to Israel, I’m now embarking on my 3rd trip in as many years and my second in this year alone!  But this is different!  This trip is not a tour, it’s not a chance to see all that I may never ever see again in my life, even though I’m certain I’ll be seeing much new and different than before and then ever again.  This time I’m spending a little more than a week on the kibbutz where my oldest son has been living and studying and working for the past 5 months.  His post-graduate experience, which I’m sure he’ll call back upon many times over in his life, will be demonstrated to me “in person” and not just in the description and/or in pictures or narratives where I’m sure my mind would wander in and out of concentration and paying attention.  It’s true what they say when they say that people rarely want to listen in great detail to your great vacations or your great adventures.  That’s not meant insultingly, it’s just the facts!  We all have momentous occasions in our lives and we can’t wait to share and/or impart our life-affirming discoveries along with photos and foods and fun.  But, in the end, not only can we rarely portray them as wonderfully as we’ve written them in our own memory, we all are just sort of busy with our own lives and planning and/or hoping for our own wonderful happenings..all of which we have at different times and places!

I’ve been extremely fortunate that not only have I been travelling intensely for the past 3 years on my own, but I have lived overseas and traveled and/or vacationed more than many and more than I thought I ever would or could.  I did take great efforts to turn trips to visit family and friends into vacations as well as work-related trips for me, and even for my ex-husband when we were married, into opportunities to travel and discover more of the world than my “Ohio” upbringing brought me.

I’ve been even more fortunate to have shared so many of these adventures with family, friends, clergy and made many new friends along the way.  I’ve had other family and friends interested enough to follow some of my blogging which, I wouldn’t blame them for a moment if they were a bit tired of by now!  It has been lovely sharing.  I’m really big on that whole sharing thing!  I love for everyone I know to know everyone I know and/or am related to; I love to share everything great with everyone I’ve ever met.  And, thankfully, I have been even more fortunate that, during my own personal struggles, most of those people in my life have been “there for me”…in lots of different ways and in lots of different times and spaces.

This trip, well, this trip is just for me!  Just because!  Because El Al had a cheap round trip airfare and my son found me a free place to stay.  Because my son is interested in having me come and see and share HIS experiences.  Because I can. Because I’ve never seen Haifa.  Because I’ve really learned to love and appreciate just getting to get up and go!  We still are a very couple-centric society.  Like it or not, the message sent out if you are not part of a couple is that something is somehow wrong with you or with your life.  If others don’t make you feel that way, you feel it on your own…just because everything is based on “double occupancy” and or pairs of tickets, etc.  But, even though my status may not have been arrived at through my own initiation, I’ve come to appreciate the freedom and autonomy not being attached has brought to my life.  There is sometimes an invisibility to it, but it too brings a sort of peace and joy to my life.

I don’t feel unloved; I don’t feel unlovable.  But I feel hurt by love or those who have and/or do love me.  But that’s not so “out of the ordinary” now is it?!!!  My sister says I hold on to things too long.  She’s right.  But we all do.  It’s how we get to where we are…like it or not, we haul all our “crap” with us!  But that is what has shaped us and, while that doesn’t make it any less “crap”…it is a valuable and important piece of who we are.

So hopefully, for this trip anyhow, I’ll pack a lot less…and live it a lot more!  🙂

עם ישראל חי