Nearing the end...

Today, May 2nd, marks exactly ten months since I arrived in Israel for the start of this journey. I de-planed the El Al jet sweaty and disoriented, Adam my love by my side. We arrived in Jerusalem several hours later, to an apartment I could not fathom living in, to a neighborhood filled with religious Jews, to a city that didn't look at all like I remembered it. I was an emotional wreck, overwhelmed and in shock and in total disbelief that I would actually be able to accomplish what was being asked of me. In those first few days, I walked around in a haze; my heart ached for Berkeley, for home, for normalcy. 

And now, I've spent just shy of one year here. I'm three weeks away from the finish line. So much has happened, I can't even process it. I've had the most incredible, challenging, and emotionally stirring adventure. I've pushed myself in every which way a person can be pushed. I've done the vast majority of it all without my beloved partner, with whom I belong, by my side. And I simply cannot believe it's coming to a close, or how much I will miss this life I've grown accostomed to. 

As we start to pack up our lives here in Jerusalem and look towards uncertain futures back in the states, I find myself torn. On the one hand, I've been ready to go home since January. You could not get me on that sixteen-hour nonstop flight faster. And yet on the other, I am so deeply saddened that this life will be completely over. End chapter. Book closed. Shut forever.

Never again will I have the opportunities I've had. Never again will I be able to live in Jerusalem - the tortured, divided, and beautiful epicenter of my religion. And never again will I have the privilege of learning in this particular environment or capacity. 

So, it's safe to say on this cloudy but warm Shabbat afternoon, as the weekend descends to the start of our penultimate school week, that I'm finding a part of myself tearing more and more in two with each passing day: the part of me that aches for home, and the part of me that will always be, strangely, connected to Jerusalem. 

-Jaclyn