Day 5,930......and my first day of blogging

Here I sit. Little ol' me. Bored out of my gourd at work. So. What does one do at work to look busy and justify receiving a salary? They blog, of course. (And I am shocked at myself that I've even gotten as far at setting up this blog thingy as actually POSTING!)

So. A teeny bit about me....

I'm 38, American, married to DH57 (2nd marriage for both of us), with three kids (DD14 from first marriage, DD6-going-on-36 and DS-almost-2 - both from this marriage). I grew up in Northern California (for which I pine daily) and I am a convert to Judaism (ditto Mom and brother). My one brother and I were homeschooled by our mother up until 12th grade at which point my parents had divorced and we moved from Northern CA to Pittsburgh, PA where I attended the local Lubavitch girl's high school and did very well. I have been vegetarian since about the age of 13 or 14 when we kashered our kitchen and decided keeping two sets of dishes for the few times a year we ate meat just wasn't worth the hassle. Finished high school and lived in Manhattan for a year while working p/t and attending a school of religious studies for newly religious women. Returned after the year to Pittsburgh and worked for the next three years while deciding what to do with myself. Then one bright day I awoke with the following brainwave of an idea: "MAKE ALIYAH!" (The word "aliyah" literally means "going up" because Israel is considered to be on a higher spiritual level for Jews than anywhere else. "Aliyah" is used to mean "emigration to Israel".)

That's the nutshell within a nutshell version.

And hey presto...here I find myself 16 years later wondering: "HOW? WHY?"

So this is where the title of my post comes in. I've lived here 16 years + 3 months or in other words.....5,930 days which, when you put it like that doesn't sound all that much. But it sure FEELS like an eternity.

Don't get me wrong. I do have good days where being here makes all the sense in the world and the "rightness" of it is blinding. But I spend a lot more days lately feeling like I have two identities, split personality disorder even - there's the THAT me and the THIS me - and feeling very very torn between the life I left and this one. Wanting the best of both worlds. And it's exhausting.

I'm not promising terribly exciting posts. Most will, in fact, probably be quite ordinary and mundane about my day to day life - the ups and downs. I am, however, hoping that this blog experiment will be an outlet for my frustrations, a way to keep busy, pass the time. Maybe I will even gain some insights and/or meet some new friends along the way?

Here goes.....