Recalculating.....

Tonight is Yom Kippur, aka the "Day of Atonement" in Judaism. Sounds pretty scary, and frankly, it sometimes it is. Thinking of how quickly life can change and how precious it is is so important to keep in mind, but so terrifying.

It's hard to tell from the outside what the "point" of Yom Kippur is. We tell G-d all of the things we did wrong, but we don't flagellate ourselves. We acknowledge that G-d makes the major decisions about what will happen to us in the coming year, but we assert our ability to change those decisions as we grow closer to G-d again. We don't eat or drink or do normal everyday activities, but we think of how much potential the everyday holds, to do both good and bad.

My favorite Yom Kippur explanation is this--it's sort of like when you're driving with the GPS and make a wrong turn, and soon after you hear the tinny voice saying, "recalculating, recalculating." And then you end up taking a route that wasn't the plan originally, but that hopefully gets you to the same place.

And that's exactly what Yom Kippur's about. Looking closely at our lives, at all the areas where we might think we're doing fantastic, and realize that we have strayed from the right path. And then we come up with plans to re-route and get to the place we want to go, becoming the people we want to be.

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My realization for this year? A lot of the time, I excuse being short/rude/unfriendly by telling myself that it's ok, because I'm stressed, or tired, or going through a difficult time. When really, I'm capable of better than that. I don't want to dump my own problems on other people. So for this year, I'm going to focus on counting to 5 when I feel myself getting angry or upset before I react.

Today, we're doing to an ultrasound appointment to double check how our Bunny is doing. It's been an intimidating and scary week, but the timing has been perfect--I can't forget that G-d is with me all the time, helping me handle it.

I hope that all of you enjoy a happy and healthy year!