Your Best Self
Today I had a conversation with someone who is very involved in the world of helping people move to Israel and then integrate as fully as possible.
She asked me: How often have you felt like your best self since moving to Israel?
Not often, she wanted me to answer. It was a leading question.
She wanted me to say that the language and the culture, the bureaucracy and the the general feeling of not belonging, impacted my ability to feel like my best self.
Making aliyah was hard. No question. Moving to a foreign country and restarting my career was hard. Figuring out how to enroll my kids in daycare and then keep up with the endless WhatsApp messages that accompany said daycare was hard. Stumbling through Hebrew and feeling like a piece of my personality had been left in America was hard. Getting pregnant and delivering a baby six months after losing my mom was gut wrenching.
But it never made me NOT feel like my best self.
It made me feel brave. Adventurous. Self actualized.
I left home at 17 and never came back. I lived in six states in the US, South Korea and Israel by the time I was in my mid twenties. When it came to moving to Israel permanently, I knew there would be challenges, but those challenges actually kept me on my toes.
I had to reimagine my career path. Make new friends. Improve my Hebrew. By a lot. But even on the hardest days, I remind myself I am never bored.
I know the question was leading, that she wanted me to say all the time, but that isn’t my truth. Always feeling challenged and interested feels pretty close to being my best self.
