I've been spending most of my days doing yoga, bike riding, running, having lunch/brunch/dinner with friends, and spending lots of really fabulous time with my family. I've got my first ballroom dance competition September 17-18 so while I've only been spending a couple hours a week dancing it has hands down been my favorite part of my time here in Chicago :)
While all of this time at home has been so relaxing it's also given me lots more mental space to daydream about these next 9 months. I've been getting a little nervous lately about this trip, which I guess is why I'm really wanting to blog tonight - I'm really needing this space. Ha, have you ever had a journal that you only wrote in when things were going poorly? Well, that might be what this is for a little while, haha, thanks for baring with me... I'll do my best to keep you guys posted of the good stuff, too!
So the nerves... I'm really excited about this journey and all the new-ness it brings AND at the same time I'm starting to get a bit anxious. It's not as much the experience of being there as it is the experience of NOT being here. I'm not sure how easy it'll be for me to access home while I'm gone (more so in India than Israel) and my mind lately has been actively doing that thing where it goes to that worst-case-scenario place regardless of how unlikely anything is to happen while I'm gone.
Anywho... new thought...
I've been thinking a lot tonight about this concept of being on the fringes of a community. Two recent scenarios can sum this up well...
One of my very oldest and dearest friends lost her grandma several days ago and I visited her home tonight to sit Shiva (Jewish tradition of 7 days of mourning after a death) with her and her family who I would consider to be a strong-standing pillar in this community. Within this community, the majority of people attend the same synagogue, go to the same summer camp, and attend the same handful of colleges. I've know most of these people and they've known me since I was in elementary school and we see one another every year or two, some a bit more frequently than that. I consider myself to be on the fringe of this community - I know everyone well enough that we can hug hello, catch up, genuinely ask about each others families and really care to hear, and so on. At the same time, I'm not involved enough with the community that I get involved with much of the politics, the gossip, the dysfunction, or just any of the overall mishigas (Yiddish for crap).
On to situation 2... (Ha ,that made me think of "The Situation" EW - can you believe he's on DWTS!?? Boooooooo on that call!!!!) A friend of mine got engaged a couple months back and is in the process of planning out her wedding. She and I were in the same small circle of friends for a couple years. It's no secret that she and I love each other very much and have a nice mutual respect yet were probably only really friends at all because of association. For whatever reason we never really had that click with each other like either of us did with the other three girls. Well she's planning her wedding now and I recently learned that the other 3 were asked to be bridesmaids in her wedding and I'm not sure that I'm going to be invited. Likewise, I consider myself on the fringe of this community of girlfriends in that I'm not as close with the one getting married as she is with the other 3 and at the same time these 4 girls are near and dear to my heart and mean so very much to me.
So, with these two situations in mind this concept of being on the fringe of community has really highlighted the pros and cons for me of being in that place. It was so so nice to be able to see all these people this evening, very pleasantly engage on a surface level, and be done. At the same time, it's just surface level. Also, while I know logically that it certainly would make zero sense for me to be a bridesmaid in this friend's wedding, I still feel left out of this community of girl friends with whom I used to be so close. My head knows it make sense and my heart still hurts a little.
I have no conclusions to these thoughts, nor am I looking for a way out from the heartache - it's part of what makes me whole. I'm just thinking about life, how it works, and where I fit into it all.
As always, thanks for reading.
All my love,
Abby
P.S. I almost forgot!! Recent new stuff I've done...
- Biked 15 miles
- Went to Space - probably the coolest venue in the North Shore for live music
- Saw Madi Diaz and The Civil Wars... amazing talent!!
- Had such a fabulous lunch with one of my high school teachers who I haven't seen in 6 years
- Took a Zumba class
- Conquered the Crow pose in yoga with a block
- Participated in a photo shoot as a hair model just for fun (some of my fave pix are below)
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