The Bitter-Sweetness

(5/15/13)

It is 4am and I can’t sleep. Maybe it’s the couch, maybe it’s the mosquitoes, or maybe it’s the realization that I want to go home. It has truly been a blessing being here with the love and support I was looking for. I’ve been validated with compliments, immediate work, and many empty promises. But I’m noticing that this is not it for me. Maybe the point of my trip was to feel more like a “somebody,” to feel important. Maybe it was a lesson in collaboration, coexistence, or the fact that no one can be completely 100% independent. Maybe it was to reconnect with my love for the American Musical that I somehow lost track of, or maybe I had to leave my country all together to see what I’d really be missing should I ever choose to leave it behind for good. These are all beautiful and important things to learn but what it boils down to is that there really isn’t much for me here. As an American non-Hebrew speaker in Israel already my options were limited, then to add to the fire that I’d have to bend over backwards for legal papers and documents to do things that I wouldn’t necessarily do on my own accord. My dearest friends are freelancers bouncing from job to job, working events (i.e. Bar/Bat Mitzvahs…i.e. teenage birthday parties) praying that they would’ve worked enough this month so that they could get paid NEXT month, and pay their bills. It’s the same struggle we have in the states except in a smaller pool with less competition at a much lower caliber. My friends are at the top of their game working to build a status quo that does not exist here and I want to make phone call after phone call after visits and stays in government offices to be thrown into that same fire?

I’ve learned that I want to work, and I have realized that I am willing to work to get work. I mentioned in an earlier blog that Action is a necessity and that seems to be the blue ribbon winner of lessons on this trip. I understand this now (as if I didn’t before). It will still be hard to jump through the hoops in the Big Apple, but at least I’ll be jumping hoops for a reason…in a language I speak!

It’s amazing how things come full circle…I’m remembering the sleep I lost when I decided to start The Quest (Note: I seldom loose sleep) and here I am filled with the same anxiety of what’s yet to come. Truthfully, I can stay up until dawn, I can pout, and cry, and be frustrated all I want but this will not give me the answers I want. No matter how many psychics you pay, you can never really know your future. All we can do is try and try again. Have a goal, make a decision, try until you can’t anymore then repeat steps 1-3 either until you’ve found your calling or until the day you leave the physical world. I’ve always had a hard time with this, but now as these thoughts leave my head through my fingers and my eyelids double in weight (no fat jokes!) I will rest my head knowing that I don’t know, and that I won’t know until it’s time. I tried Israel…and now it’s time to try New York again. A scary world for different reasons than many may think…but the goal’s been set, the decision’s been made, and now it’s time to try and try again.

I will start now by trying and trying to get some rest!

To all of you who kept such strong faith in me when I had no idea what I was doing, I love and appreciate you more than words can say!

  To trial and error!

~S