The Good Stuff

Feeling uber grateful for the year ahead.

It's the first year in a decade where I feel room to breathe. Room to grow and embrace the year to come vs. brace for the year ahead.

My mom once shared how during my Bat Mitzvah year, she remembered standing at the Bima with me, my dad and sister and feeling established as a family.

I feel what she means.

This past year I cocooned around my family and spent the time to re-connect and mend our fences.

It was partly forced upon us since many of my close anchors moved out of state. It was like they abandoned ship. All which I'd rather not re-live but they left a void.

And with any void comes an opening. I had to say goodbye to my external crutches. I turned inward to rebuild the link in my family, myself and stayed close to home last year.

My family's fences have been tested over the past decade in ways I wouldn't wish upon any one. This past summer when my kids were in camp, my husband and I had time to ourselves. I honestly really wasn't sure how that was going to go. We haven't had any real time to ourselves in 12 years. Sure a night or a weekend spurt here and there but not like this.

Home by ourselves.

It was lovely. It was a delightful surprise and a huge sigh of relief.

My shift this year has been from having to make the best of what I have to living the way I'd like. It's a big huge major mindset shift out of survivor mode and into thriver mode.

And it feels gooooood.

We began to set our sights towards the upcoming year. There's so much to look forward to this year. One major thing being, my son's bar mitzvah.

I still can't believe his time is now. We are planning to celebrate the ceremony in Israel.

To use a vocabulary word from my daughter's Homework in a sentence, we're making a pilgrimage to our homeland for my son's initiation into the order of his ancestors.

I checked a list of other families sharing the year. It's a long beautiful list filled with families who've I've known since first entering pre-school over a decade ago. I saw many of these kids out in town recently and was just amazed. They're all so grown up and a great bunch of kids. I see them all grown up but remember them being pint sized.

I remember being in the halls of our pre-school, frazzled, tired, stressed and just trying to figure this mom thing out. It was during my son's time in the 3's when my world went pop. So double the frazzle dazzle momsanity. It was the innocence and wonderment of that phase that kept me sane, centered and present.

Each of us have had our trials. Noone gets an issue free life. No one. The challenges and demands don't cease. We just get better at working through them.

We've each come so far.

As my fellow Mitzvah families are in the throws of planning all the little nitty gritty details for your upcoming celebrations, I know how stressful and overwhelming the event planning process can be, especially with family and friend politics, however, I will strongly urge you to press the pause button and don't lost sight of the fact that this is the Good Stuff.

Let me repeat - THIS IS THE GOOD STUFF!!!!

This is the stuff when you dreamt of becoming a mother, you wanted to savor and fill your heart. The pride of being a mom. The joy of having kids. The excitement of having a family of your own.

This is the stuff Jewish Moms LIVE FOR. It's our MOMent. LOL

Our MOMent to stand up at the Bima next to our children as they leap into adulthood. We get to bask in the joy of knowing YOU are the link in the chain that mends your fences. YOU are the glue that holds your family together. YOU are the key.

THEY (our kids) are the fruits of all your labor. THEY are the key to every lock in your heart. THEY are the future of your generational line. THEY are what matters.

All your 13 years of trying to figure this mom adulting thing out, and what will work and won't work, for your kids and family, all those decisions and right and wrong turns led you to this moment.

THIS IS THE GOOD STUFF!!!

Savor it. Relish it. Don't take it for granted. Enjoy it. Celebrate it. Be grateful.

I can't ever express how grateful I am to be in this moment. I feel my grandparents and ancestors shining light from the other side onto my family with a spotlight on my son. Everytime I think about Israel and my son's bar mitzvah chills run throughout my being and the tears form in my eyes.

Beautiful, happy, blessed tears.

So if you want to know what I need right now, tissues, hugs, exhales. And for time to slow down so I don't miss a beat of this beautiful wonderful year.

May life be peaceful, my family and friends be healthy so there's no distractions from the joy of relishing in the GOOD STUFF.