A Moment of Possibility

It was the summer of 2023, and I was flailing while being filled with an unrelenting force of internal screaming. That April, I had been affected and devastated by the third round of reduction in force layoffs at the Fortune 100 company where I had been working. On top of that, I was holding out hope for a marriage and blended family that was rapidly failing. It was the end of July, and I had come home to Virginia to attend the Celebration of Life for my step father who had died of pancreatic cancer earlier that June. My savings was dwindling, the ongoing job hunt was killing my soul, and I felt like a fool chasing mist.

While standing at the Richmond International baggage claim, the excruciating pain and humiliation that hit was in conflict with the mundane screeching and movement of the metal conveyor belt carrying bland and beat up luggage under yellowed fluorescent lighting. As I lifted my suitcase, the emotional weight was staggering. Heart heavy, I somehow got through the process of getting to my mother’s house and the echoes of my step father within it. I had set aside three weeks for the visit, and I desperately needed each of those days to recoup the bruised and battered pieces of myself.

In the words of Wynonna Judd, “When you hit rock bottom, you’ve got two ways to go. Straight up or sideways.”

I was tired of sideways. I simply didn't know how to do things differently.

Soon after the Celebration of Life, I applied to an unlikely position as an art director for a Jewish book magazine. Up until that point, I had been focused on positions in project management given my experience in it; but I was contemplating career changes, tossing around the idea of giving art school a second chance, and potentially becoming an entrepreneur as a bookbinder. In preparation for the potential interview that I wouldn't get, I found myself falling in love. I didn't get the job, but instead found Judaism.

My grandfather, may his memory be for a blessing, used to tell this horse racing joke. While I don't remember most of the joke, what I do remember is that over the course of the race, multiple horses are neck and neck with being in the lead. Suddenly, a horse that's never been mentioned before ends up winning. This is the perfect analogy of my relationships with different religions.

All throughout my life, I experimented with a multitude of beliefs and spiritualities. In high school, I was obsessed with Sarah Bailey from The Craft and Sally Owens from Practical Magic. My library and mind were filled with thoughts of the occult. My first marriage in my early twenties was a frenzied consumption of fundamentalist Christian quiverfull Kool-Aid. Eventually, I settled on a form of agnosticism as nothing was really fitting the wide range of desires I held for a spiritual path. This, coupled with the doubt surrounding whether or not my spiritual experiences were real or a result of bipolar mania (a story for another time), resulted in a particularly grueling dry spell. The last thing anyone expected, especially myself, was for me to decide on Judaism.

I’m not a casual person. Once something catches my interest, I gulp down with gusto every scrap I can find on it. This has a tendency to lead to late nights filled with Google rabbit holes and rapid reading consumption. In all honesty, I don’t quite remember the amount of information I researched. It’s a bit of a blur filled with grief and anxiety over the anticipated return home and sinking into my normal of slowly wasting away.

As Clementine said in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, "I'm always anxious thinking I'm not living my life to the fullest, you know? Taking advantage of every possibility? Just making sure I'm not wasting one second of the little time I have."

Those possibilities had disappeared from my life into a swirl of unemployment, marriage counseling, and lack of adventure. While still in Virginia, I had begun the process of contacting shuls in anticipation of my trip back. It was one of the few things that put a crack in the dam of avoiding my life. The oppressive heat. Dates at Red Robin. The never ending throwing away of Starbucks cups lined up on the kitchen counter. Days and nights of Netflix and video games in lieu of human connection. Feeling like your days are a continual repetition of the average.

Something needed to change, but change is terrifying. It creates a sense of vanishment. Something is dying in order to bring in the new. While a normal part of the process, you can't have change without the removal of something. The effects will be felt regardless of if it's something you want. I knew conversion would cause a great degree of change, but didn't know how much. I'm someone who wants to know all options and solutions. Mysteries frustrate me. The unknown makes me panic. And yet, here I was willing to take the leap and do something completely unexpected knowing it would have untold effects on my current state of life.

I can’t pin point the exact moment I knew I wanted to convert, but I do know it happened somewhere between reading Sarah Hurwitz’s book Here All Along and being adopted in a synagogue parking lot by my Jewish grandmother in August soon after my return to Texas. The compassionate and intricate look at Jewish ethics gently reached me while Sheri's smile and acceptance opened my heart to the wholesome and light-filled Jewish community. I needed something to restore my soul, but was I willing to go so far out of my own comfort zone? And, if so, why? I didn't know where to begin when it came to explaining the awe-inspiring feeling of being part of a connected consciousness with a people. How the endless search led to my personal beliefs finding an alignment with something beyond myself.

While going down this process of new discovery, I was having difficulty finding more modern expressions and journeys of Jewish converts and non-converts alike. I wanted resources beyond books and informational websites. Things that went into the personal perspective and how Jewishness was integrated into someone's everyday life from family to individual. How to find resources and apply them to my own unique path to my practice beyond conversion itself.

I was facing never ending layers of learning filled with books, categories, terms, movies, articles, videos, podcasts, and websites. How did one organize it all? Find it all? Where were the processes and resources on learning Biblical Hebrew? Where do you find the prayer melodies and modes for davening? My inner anthropologist was itching to understand the modern and historical cultures of Jewish music, Judaica, art, literature, and poetry. Then that expanded into the Middle East and Israel's role, culture, language, and history in it. I soon realized staying on top of current events involved learning more about global to local politics and breaking down antisemitism in the world today. Then came the big word: Zionism. Such a word fraught with controversy, but I felt it was important to discover the meaning of being a Progressive and Zionist. If that wasn't enough, how does all of this shape the modern Jewish experience? How does it shape my own?

However, my excitement was beginning to wane and the well of exuberance I had been drinking from was quickly drying out. Finding the energy resources and spoons to pursue this path was getting more and more difficult as my everyday life was deteriorating and my desire to hold onto it was slipping further and further away. Learning, which is an absolute delight for me, was being replaced by escapism and the need to appease others. It was untenable.

I ripped myself from Texas for a new life in Virginia. It was like rebreaking a bone in order for it to heal properly. This healing came with figuring out my personhood while learning how to feel connected in a Jewish community in a way authentic to myself. It ended up being the best thing for reigniting my journey and self-discovery. However, the overwhelming information was still ever persistent.

I decided, what the heck, I'd create what I'd been looking for. Things began to settle into a routine. Soon after figuring out the name of this newsletter, I had an annoyingly appropriate pep talk from my cousin's wife about progress over perfection and no more daydreams. Instead, go turn those daydreams into reality! So, here it is, my moment of possibility of turning a daydream into reality. A place of story, connection, and exploration in order to give to others what I had been looking for. And the hope that whomever finds their way here will find what they're looking for. Be it the definition of a term or the answer to a much more existential question.

Shalom and welcome.