On Yom Kippur

With the help of several wonderful friends, I think I've finally been able to understand and parse the meaning of Yom Kippur and Judaism this year. It’s been wonderful and painful and enlightening, and I feel I’ve become a better person, a better version of myself, for it.

Have I?

I've been striving to understand the holiday through action: reading through the prayers in full even if i don't understand or agree with them, finding small ways to do good, to do better. But I've failed. That doesn't mean it was pointless. But I have failed.

I have not apologized to those I've wronged. I've been callous to friends and family, taking their presence and their love for granted. I have not forced myself to confront my own behavior, to better it.

The last of those, the least, I can make right.

When I graduated college, I had to move back home. And I hated it. Despite my mom's efforts to compromise, to support me, to help me be comfortable, I felt stuck, imprisoned. Alone, uprooted from the community I built with my friends in college, lost.

I wasn't wrong for feeling that way. Isolation brought out the worst in me: my loneliness, my moodiness, my tendency to view others as resources. I could feel myself becoming a worse person, and my awareness just made me hate it that much more. If I wanted to be the person I wanted to be, I would have to get back to where I belonged.

With little else to do, I worked toward that obsessively. In the name of keeping myself moving forward, I blinded myself to everything but my goals. That I eventually succeeded does not justify my behavior at the time. I didn't think about my past, and I was careless for the consequences of my actions in the present.

I abandoned friendships and burnt bridges. I was callous and distant to those around me. I relied too much of the kindness and support of a few friends without a thought for their own needs. I may not have hurt them, but I did take advantage of their generosity.

When you start to see someone as a hero, it's easy to forget they're human. It's easy to forget they need care too.

I'm sorry.

I can't fix the way I acted last year, but this year, I will be better. Where I once ran from others, I will stand by them. Where I once burnt bridges, I will build them. Where I once took love, I will give it.

I will fail, of course. I understand this. But if I can read this post a year from now and say honestly that I am a better person than I was today...

...well, that's worth something.