Maybe some of you older olim can help me with this, but my first trip home has been an emotional roller coaster. I'm super happy and excited one minute, I'm sad about leaving the next, I'm super homesick for Israel the next, and I just feel in emotional limbo at the moment.
My flight home leaves Friday, weather permitting, since there is a massive snow and ice storm that will be rolling through the area and the area of my first connecting flight starting Thursday. Strange enough, I'm not happy with the prospect of staying later or the prospect of leaving earlier because, somewhere in my twisted brain, I have it figured out that Friday is the "sweet spot." Not too little, not too much. Goldie Lock's "just right." I blamed it on the prospect of missing more school when being weepy to my patient and amazing boyfriend earlier, but it's much deeper than that.
When I'm not in Israel, I'm not completely myself...perhaps my healthy self is more accurate to say. My stomach is messed up because I'm not used to the heavy and gut-punching American food anymore. My brain is all scrambled because I'm not with my adopted family(s) who have become such an integral part of my everyday life. My body is beyond jacked up seeing as how I'm on the two week mark of being in the States, and I'm still jet lagged and finding myself tired at all the wrong times.
When I'm not in Arkansas, I'm constantly worried about my parents, my two loving lifelines who mean the world to me. I miss Mexican and Thai and Indian food. I miss my dear American friends. And at this particular moment, I'm stuck between those two worlds, longing to be in Israel but already missing Arkansas (or more correctly, the people who mean something to me since we established in an earlier post that I could very well do without this small town mentality). How do you deal when you feel like you're about to be torn in two again?
You deal with it with a smile knowing that you, and only you, have been the one to make it possible to live in such a way, having found yourself two different worlds and homes on this vast Earth. And you're proud of that fact. You busted it to be able to buy a ticket and come home to show those close to you how much you love them and to just simply (and importantly) be with them. And you get to return to the place where you feel the best and continue on with the beautiful life you've built with pride and support coming at you from all sides.
I guess this is truly summing up what it means to be an Arkansan Israeli, a citizen and lover of both places. Pretty amazing. So, here's yours truly, "Confused Israeli in Arkansas, Soon to Be Confused Arkansan in Israel," awaiting the balance to be restored. But more thankful than ever for the life I have.
