WHA?

WHA?

Now I know how the deer feels.

Somehow we met, got married, had 3 children and a short time later we are living in Israel with 5 of our grandchildren and our two daughters/sons in law. What the....?

There is now way I can process this, I think, for a very long time.

But far be it from me not to at least write about it. I have had a diet blog for a while, http://diettalk.blogspot.com and have regaled oh, about 6 people with my eating issues. So why not foist more of my paranoia, fear, and fret-a-holic ways on my reading public?

So here goes - the first blog after aliyah.

It is 4:00 am and of course I am awake. Even though I dutifully changed my watch before we landed somehow that did not magically change my body's rhythms. But then again we haven't slept well for months in anticipation of all of this.

For your amusement, here are some of the things I've been fretting about:

1. It will snow and the flight will be cancelled.
2. Our luggage will be lost - even our carry ons will be lost from the overhead bins, which hold all of our VERY IMPORTANT PAPERS that we MUST BRING WITH US.
3. I will get a massive headache on the flight and take too many excedrin and get sick.
4. We will get to israel and no one will ever have heard of us and our visas will turn out to be fake.
5. They will ask us for paperwork that we never heard of ("And WHERE is your form stating that you are NOT bringing a pet to the country? Don't have it? Back you go!")
6. oh, there is so much more.

So our day of aliyah went nicely, all things considered:

1. There was not a historic snowstorm in Baltimore OR Philadelphia
2. We were able to upgrade to Business class on our flight, so we were more rested and less traumatized by the flight itself.
3. Our luggage made it and no one ransacked the overhead bins while we were sleeping (haha! I have their 'we're jewish' letter! let's go!)
4. The nice people from AACI met us on the ramp going towards Passport Control and led us through the process of getting our first round of papers.
5. We were met by screaming, smiling, and crying children and grandchildren and our reunion was fantastic.

Now we need to do many things that new immigrants really must do right away, and thank goodness our kids are helping us with that.

But all in all, I'm in a complete and utter fog. I don't know what I feel and am happy to go through the motions and let people take me by the hand for a bit. And I miss our kids in Chicago and wish they were with us so that our joy could be perfect. I have a mother's guilt about "leaving" Aaron and Ayelet and those gorgeous, sweet, funny boys and have an incredible urge to hug all of them and know that I can't because we're too far away. But then again that's how I've been feeling about Leezy and Gila for 3 years. Oy, this parenting thing doesn't get easier, does it.

And then I can't stop thinking about our adjustment. I keep looking at my kids doing things and thinking, I'm going to have to know how to drive here and drive there and do this and do that and how am I going to learn all of that? I'm terrified and excited and exhausted, but right now mostly terrified. I know this will ease as I do each thing but still. And having Bern leave in less than 6 weeks doesn't help because it puts a weird urgency into everything. After 37 years you'd think being separated for a couple of months would not be a big deal, but you'd be wrong.

And the eating. Back to that. Looking at the photos online I'm thinking, "UGH you still look hideous." So that continues and I will find a way to make that work too. Mostly I need to exercise and I have "waited" until I got here to think about that, because there is nothing so wonderful as an excuse to put off exercise. Gotta think of another one now. Ideas please.
Talk to you tomorrow.....