Fuck

Disclaimer: I was clearly in a bad mood when I wrote this but I'll put it up anyway even though I don't feel so shitty anymore. For anyone who's thinking about making a long term move to Israel, or any foreign country for that matter I suppose, expect lots of highs and lows on the extreme ends of the emotional spectrum with little in-between.

During the week the nights are kind of boring but that doesn't mean that they're bad. I study my Hebrew (which I'm getting really frustrated with), write, read, or exercise. Those four things, plus socializing, are things that I do on a daily basis. I literally set time aside each day for each. Except for the socializing part-- it gets really lame during the week. On the weekend (which starts on Thursday) I head to the pub which is literally right outside my room. It's the same people there all the time, but it's a good time to exit reality for a little while and shoot the shit with people. I love talking to the Israelis here who were in combat units-- people that have done what I'm going to do and have come out okay on the other side. It makes me all excited to head to the army. I know that I made the right choice. I'd be miserable at college right now, especially since I'd have to return to my train wreck of a family during the breaks which take up like half of the year. Here I get to visit my much more normal family on the weekends. It's really depressing sometimes, because I'll look at their photo albums and see pictures from holidays, family trips, or regular Friday night dinners, and I'll think to myself that I totally missed out on this. Being the American in the family is kind of lonely. I don't speak Hebrew and I often can't relate to them. At dinner everyone speaks Hebrew and I don't know enough to follow or figure out what's going on. I kind of just sit there hanging my head.

I'm trying to figure out what happiness is, where you can find it, and how you can get it. I feel lonely all the time, like there's never going to be someone I can relate to. Now that I've exited the microcosm of high school I have experiences with which to juxtapose, and I can see something that all normal people have that I don't. It's so fundamental and basic I didn't even realize it until now. I had to circle the sun eighteen god damn just to OBSERVE this. I feel like I just figured out where babies come from. I don't know how to put a name to what I'm describing, it's too basic for that. It's just this elementary, fundamental, rudimentary ability people have to relate to others. I can't explain it. It allows people to connect. I don't mean on any deep level, I mean just with people you'd be comfortable hanging out with alone. Remember that scene from Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman says that two people know they're comfortable with each other only when they can be content in each other's silence. They don't have to make bull shit small talk. Whatever THAT thing is that allows people to be comfortable in someone else's silence, I don't have it and I can only seldom get it. I've seen it here, and just to be clear, you don't have to actually see two people sitting next to each other not speaking to witness what I'm talking about. Even when people are conversing or playing basketball or doing whatever, it's there, unnoticed by the people who have it, in their eyes or body language.

I'm aiming the ball all the time instead of just shooting it, over thinking everything until there's steam coming out of my ears my head is doing 360s.