GROWING UP? SO SOON?

Rosh HaShana is coming and I suspect that I might actually be growing up.

Firstly, I knocked on someone’s door, a person whom I found out that I had offended, and I apologized to them face to face, and I didn’t implode. We aren’t friends, we won’t become friends, but I made the apology. I can’t remember doing this in the past, even though we talk about this idea of asking forgiveness from our fellows for any sins we may have committed.

Then, when my husband asked me to call his elderly aunt in New York, and his cousin who just made a wedding, I didn’t do what I usually do, or think what I usually think, which is, ‘Why do I have to phone your aunt and cousin?’ especially since I hate the phoning before Yom Tov thing (and I hate the phone in general, a necessary evil for business). And then when I try to call, whoops, I can’t call, time zone wrong etc. Not this time. I just picked up the phone and made the calls, and everyone was happy and it didn’t tear a hole in the fabric of the universe. So I felt quite grown-up.

About 2 years ago I shocked myself during Yom Kippur services by not feeling the need to riffle through the pages to torture myself with how many more hours and pages of davenning there was to go. I just davenned it, and was pleasantly surprised when I realized we were near the end. I actually got into the whole thing without my brain screaming at me to go out into the fresh air and how much buttering up of G-d can I stand already?? No, it was all quite uplifting and meaningful. Last year, I reverted. But this year, who knows? Mind you, I am 56 years old, so it has taken a little longer than I thought to get to this point.

I still scream at inanimate objects and half believe that they have spirits, usually malevolent, of their own. I don’t think that’s immaturity though, that’s lunacy. But you have to wonder sometimes, don’t you? How things get lost and then turn up after you’ve bought a new one? Or how you know how you put something on your desk and now it’s gone just when you need it? And then it turns up exactly where you knew you left it, when you don’t need it anymore. Doesn’t this happen to everyone? Just me, then. OK, moving right along.

Another thing that has happened is that time has accelerated, so no matter how boring or difficult a situation I find myself in, I know that in a few minutes the hour will be over, in a few days the week will be over- I think about Shabbos already on Monday, and Wednesday is already Erev Shabbos- and in a few months the year will be over etc. Of course, this cuts both ways, because the good things are over too quickly. So ‘this, too, will pass’ is the mantra.

And here we are, Erev Rosh HaShana, and it was only Pesach 3 months ago, I swear. (And it will be Pesach again in 3 months! Good Lord.)

So I wish you all the usual, good health, and a happy, successful New Year. I wish for the same for myself and my family, as well as further opportunities to be all grown-up and responsible, (as long as I have opportunities to be immature too. Too much grown-up stuff is just depressing.) May you not have to riffle through your Machzor, may time pass not too quickly to appreciate the wonder of the world that HaShem has created. May there be peace for Klal Yisroel and for all the world, and may we truly merit the simcha of meeting Moshiach now, because the way the world is right now, I don’t really see what else will save us.

Ksiva veChasima Tova. Signed, sealed, delivered.