High Holidays…  Every year as these very important days approach I vow I am gonna stay relaxed.  I am not gonna let it stress me out.  Every year I get a little bit better at not freaking out.  But no matter how much I practice my breathing, there comes a point as these days approach, that I feel an invisible hand on my throat with a vice like grip getting tighter and tighter.  My breathing becomes more shallow and then I FREAK OUT!  I feel like I can’t breath and I want to cry, but I can’t breath!  And I am sure I will suffocate.

What is this invisible hand that is trying to choke me to death?  Why can’t I stay focused on the religious and spiritual meaning of the holidays?  What is wrong with me?!?!

I have some ideas about this, but I am not exactly sure.  There is the fact that I am a fairly “new Jew” and just have some insecurity issues.  It takes a lifetime of learning to really dig deep into the religious prayer and meaning and language.  I have had babies consistently since I became a Jew, so I am a little behind in the study department.  I don’t know the language that orthodox services are delivered.  There is the pressure I put on myself to rise above all this lack of knowledge and provide an amazing experience for my kids.  There is the fear that if I don’t provide that amazing experience for my kids, they will grow up, leave home and I will never see them on holidays again.  I will be one of those lonely old moms going to services I don’t understand all by myself.   There is the fact that Noah is actually graduating from high school this year and that fear is that much closer.  Staring me in the face close!  There is the socializing that my introverted self must go through to achieve this amazing experience for my children.  There is the cooking and cleaning involved in order to have people over to provide this amazing socializing experience for my kids.

I think the freak out moment came this year when I tried to find my dining room table under the pile of clean laundry on top of it.  When I say ‘pile of clean laundry’ what I mean is:  Every piece of clothing in our house was dirty, got washed, got piled on my table and was waiting patiently to be folded and put away.  What I also mean is, that every person in my family was perfectly happy  to walk BY this pile making no effort to help it disappear off my table.  Aside from digging THROUGH the pile to find the one clean thing they needed to wear.

So…FREAK OUT!!!!!!!!!!!

And then what always happens next…

Call Edie.

Edie is my soul mate sister on earth.  She is my spiritual guide and life line in life.  She is the person who knows the most about what hurts my heart and never judges me.  Never.  Ever.  She is probably one of the wisest people I have ever had the privilege to know.  And knowing her is a blessing.

She first made me laugh at my predicament.  Then helped me breathe.  Then let me cry.  Then with her Southern Baptist upbringing spiritually set me straight.  We have some crazy unrelated, incompatible religious backgrounds and yet, we speak the same spiritual language.  We both agree that God is God and the rest of it is a work in progress.

After she set me straight, (again) I sat on my back porch and wrote down all that I had to be grateful for on this New Year.  This holiday that is supposed to crown God as King.  I thought about how real God is in my life.  I thought about how much God has done for me, personally.  I realized, God is King alright.  And the rest of it is a work in progress.

So that amazing experience I want for my kids?  I hope it is this.  That God is King in their lives.  That they have every thing to be thankful for and the ability to see it.  And when they can’t,  that they are blessed enough to have an “Edie” in their lives to hold and guide them along the way.  Thank you my dear dear sweet friend.  I would be lost without you.