My Quarter-Life Crisis

This morning started out pretty unremarkable. I had slept a good 14 hours the night before (in my defense, I had been up til 6am the night before dancing and participating in other forms of various debauchery) and when I woke up, I could not shake off a little gloomy feeling that was creeping in on me. After I had managed to shove a poptart down my throat, I began to realize why I was so miserable: I had had another dream of Israel.

Now I never dream. Seriously- when my head hits the pillow, in T minus 5 seconds, I am out and not even WWIII could get me up (I have literally been asleep during missile firings, gunshots and a neighbor's notorious late night sex romps and not missed a minute of sleep). I cannot remember the exact details of the dream, except  I just woke up with an odd sense of nostalgia and sadness. It wasn't until later when I got to work and logged onto Facebook and saw that my ulpan roommate had moved back to complete another ulpan program at our kibbutz that I just got so sad.

I miss those days so much. I miss Israel. It breaks my heart to think about how sad I am missing it. I think about Israel every single day. I surround myself with Hebrew, listen to Israeli music, feel a bright surge of pride when I see falafel stands and boast proudly (and obnoxiously, I'm sure) whenever I spot Natalie Portman on the cover of a magazine. I dread looking at my friend's Facebook profiles and seeing the pictures of them all together and just feeling so isolated. I literally feel myself longing to return. I miss the thick air, the grime of the Tel Aviv streets and the constant noise of obnoxious and whiny Mizrahi music. Even my frustration at the bus schedule and annoyance with trying to get the simplest things accomplished are sorely missed. 

And the most tense and stressful moment in my life is happening now. I am at a crossroads and need to make a decision: the most important one that I have made in awhile. Whenever I was faced with other challenging moments, my security blanket was Israel. When I took a semester off of university to decompress after a chaotic Freshman year, I chose Israel. When I was faced with the decision to study abroad, I had dozens of options but I chose Israel. And when I was looking at working or getting an internship over the summer, I threw caution to the wind (and literally all my finances) and chose Israel. And now that I am about to graduate from university and am facing another great crossroads, I am again torn. Is it Israel for me again?

I am young, I want to experience more. I want to hitchhike in Africa, salsa in Argentina and drink a pint in Ireland. And yet, as I sift through the various options of where I want to go in the coming year, I cannot help but wonder: what about Israel? And yes, I know that Israel will always be there (actually that is not entirely definite, but for the sake of this entry let's just go with it) but I cannot help but feel a sense of... something that makes me feel like I am missing out. Like I am the neighbor who didn't get invited to the party so I have to watch it from my window. I know it sounds irrational, but I can't help but feel that way. And I have a weird panic that if I don't get there soon, I will miss out on everything. I just am not entirely sure what "everything" is. 

I think this panic is also being brought upon by my overwhelming list of "what if". "What if I work for 6 months and then use that money to travel?" or "What if I get offered a job right away, do I take it?" I feel like I am in the middle of a 'Write Your Own Adventure Book' and I just have no idea which adventure to pick. And yes, of course I am excited and eager for whatever adventure I do end up picking, but I wish I could just get those damn "what ifs" out of my head. I have a huge, sometimes detrimentally large, faith that everything works out in the end. I cannot approach life in any other way, I have just had so many negative experiences in my life that have turned out to be so positive. It's quite literally impossible for me to see any situation and not find something positive in it (feel free to test me on this). The only sense I can make out of my mini panic attack today is that I am facing my quarter-life crisis and although I still have a couple more months to enjoy hanging out at bars and hitting up afterparties til 5:00am, I still can't shake off my feeling of worry.

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So, I will deal with this situation in the only way how: by seeing how amazing it is that I even have the opportunity to be able to sit and stress out about where I will be 6 months or a year from now. All of my options are incredible: I could be studying human rights law in some European capital, or teaching schoolchildren English in Georgian while spending my weekends on a beach in Croatia- or I even could be calling myself an Israeli citizen and waiting in line for 3 hours at the post office. All of these options are so exciting to me, and truthfully they are also frighten me because they mark a whole new time period for me. But I am confident that wherever I end up, I will be okay. And til I actually have to choose, there really is no point in stressing out about it... right?