My Jewish Christmas

This year's Christmas was quite different from Christmases past, and while this distressed my nostalgic self several months ago, it turned out to be a blessing. It was a reminder that traditions change and evolve for many reasons, and that my conversion is not the sole factor.

As kids, we spent Christmas just the five of us because our extended family lived 13 hours away. We spent Christmas Eve going to church (I went off and on once I turned 18, my brother stopped completely, and my sister always went) while Mom set up the Christmas Eve snacks and got the movie ready for our return.

On Christmas morning, my sister was always the first to wake up, and as a small child I was usually the last, coming down around 8:30 or so. I'd come downstairs, blinking and yawning, to see my sister and brother ecstatic over the unwrapped gifts (large or awkward items like a bike or a Barbie dreamhouse) and their plundered stockings. Then with me present, we could now all tear through our individual piles of gifts.

In the post-Santa age, we started putting presents under the tree in advance and then "played Santa," an idea we took from the movie A Christmas Story in which one person (usually me, I loved volunteering for this role) would deliver one gift at a time. This helped make the gift-opening last longer in an age where we were getting fewer, pricier gifts. It also allowed us an opportunity to watch each other enjoy each of our gifts, rather than being absorbed in our own greed-induced frenzy.

Throughout our lives and across our developmental phases, Christmas meant not getting out of our pajamas, snacking on stocking treats til mid-afternoon dinner, and lazing around watching Christmas movies.

This year was very different - except for maybe that last paragraph. My sister and her husband didn't get in until 1:00am Christmas Day because he had to work and then they went to Mass, so they weren't a part of the Christmas Eve festivities. My brother did come (which is very unusual the past 10 years or so, as he used to live across the state) and brought along with him his new wife. On Christmas Day, my brother-in-law slept in and, when he awoke, we went through our stockings. Mom had told us this would be the last year for stockings, as it was a lot to fill for each couple, and now that we are all married, we should be responsible for our partners' stockings. So we relished each little goodie, knowing this tradition would be gone next year.

We also did Secret Santa this year, and had agreed not to exchange until my brother and his wife got there; they were spending Christmas morning with my brother's stepkids, ages 7 and 9, and coming over around 11:00. So until they got there, my parents exchanged gifts with one another, as did my sister and her husband. Nicole and I had exchanged during Hanukkah. Then when my brother arrived, we watched the kids open their gifts from my parents before we did our adult Secret Santa. We haven't watched kids on Christmas morning since WE were kids, and it really made us feel more adult on this holiday than we ever have. Once their excitement settled down, the adults exchanged, and the gifts were delightfully modest since we'd set a modest price limit (also a change from years past - but honestly a welcome one).

It was a fun day full of family togetherness, and yet so different from Christmases past. As Rabbi stated when we met on 12/22, this is a reminder that traditions change and evolve throughout the life cycle for a myriad of reasons, so it isn't just religious conversion that is affecting this. Seeing that in action did really help. I was able to enjoy the day just as fully as ever, if not more so, despite the differences in how we normally celebrate and the difference in its personal significance to me. This gives me confidence that Nicole and I can create equally meaningful traditions in our own little family without feeling the profound loss I had half-anticipated.

Intro to Judaism - Week 7

The suggested topic for this week has several questions - but the last one is about Hanukkah, and my idea of Christmas has been so loaded that I feel compelled to focus on that. As with so many things during this journey, my thought process and beliefs have evolved so dramatically within such a short period of time that I wish I had approached this topic sooner, rather than having to try to capture it all within one post. I'm going to do my best, but it may be a bit scattered.

Earlier in the year (er, maybe even a couple months ago), Nicole and I had discussed keeping Christmas celebration to honor the culture and traditions of both of our families and what we have grown up with. We made it sound so great, right? Except that it was really a justification to keep something that seemed too difficult to give up. Celebrating Christmas in addition to the Jewish holidays made sense in Nicole's home growing up, and makes sense in many homes, because they are interfaith families. Having both come from families that celebrated Christmas does not make us an interfaith family. Our faith is Jewish, and our traditions and holidays should be Jewish (or secular, such as Halloween and Thanksgiving). And no, Christmas is not secular. Trying to make it so feels disingenuine, shameful to my newly forming Jewish identity, and irreverent toward a religion from which I separated myself with much respect.

My next step was to see if we could just have a Christmas tree, even if we otherwise tried to downplay the significance of the holiday. The idea of not having a Christmas tree hurt more than almost anything else. I can do without a lot of other decorations, I can do without lights on my house, I can even do without a pile of gifts. But I couldn't imagine not having a tree sparkling in the corner, filled with ornaments that have so much meaning and mark my path through life - new home ornaments, first married Christmas ornament with our wedding photo in it, a Christmas frame ornament with a picture of my beloved cat who died of cancer a few years ago, ornaments that I made when I was little.

Then I did the readings for class. *sigh* And like everything else, they make so much sense for me and detail what I know in my heart to be true, but with better context than I could have given it all by myself. How do you celebrate Hanukkah, a holiday that recalls a story in which a small group of Jews resisted assimilation into the larger culture, and then follow its tail by doing just that? What kind of message will I be sending my children?

It was hard for a while to think of not "giving" my children Christmas. And by Christmas, I don't mean the story of the birth of Jesus. I mean Santa and the excitement of waking up Christmas morning to a pile of gifts. But then I remember another conversation Nicole and I had when we first started house-hunting. It was so difficult for me to picture my kids growing up on these tiny plots with houses practically on top of each other. I grew up with a field next to and across from me in one house, and woods and a creek in my backyard in another. How could I not give my kids the experience of spending a Saturday afternoon building forts in the woods, playing "office" in a field, letting Barbies go for a dip in the creek? Then Nicole, who was born and raised here on Long Island, pointed out that she didn't feel that she herself had missed out that experience because she didn't know any different. Such a childhood is sentimental to me because it was MINE. My children won't know that, and their own sentimental memories will be about their little backyard and going to the playground up the street at the elementary school and taking trains into the city for events. Is that any less valuable?

Remembering that conversation helps me with this. My kids will not know Christmas. As sad as that may sound to some (Nicole's brother was in absolute shock and almost angry at what we are "denying" our children), what celebrations are YOU missing out on because they're part of someone else's culture, not yours? Being fun isn't reason enough to incorporate something into our lives that goes against what we believe in.

In one of the readings for this week, it said something to the effect of, "It's only hard to be a Jew if you don't like being a Jew." Being Jewish comes with year-round celebrations that our kids will be able to enjoy. Do they need Christmas when get to dress up in costume and celebrate Purim, and have major family celebrations and feasts around Passover and Rosh Hashana? They don't need everything - and what they do need is a solid sense of their Jewish identity with parents who are strong enough to make the best decisions for our family despite outside pressures.

I do want our children to be able to take part in the celebrations of their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. But it should feel like it would for my parents coming over for Passover seder - an opportunity to spend time with family on a day that is festive and important to us, but still clearly not their own holiday. And we need to be sure to set boundaries to ensure that we aren't walking like a duck and talking like a duck but claiming not to be a duck. For instance, we could start our own tradition, since we will always have Christmas off of work and school, to go to a movie together and then maybe go to my in-laws' for Christmas dinner. Sure, they can give our kids a gift for Christmas, as is their tradition - but I would ask that they give the majority of them for Hanukkah, and I wouldn't want our kids going over there first thing Christmas morning. Or if we use the school break to travel to my parents', we should probably do it the week between Christmas and New Year's so that they aren't waking up in their home on Christmas.

Christmas is everywhere, both in our families and in our largely Catholic neighborhood, but we're not alone in this. We are a part of a large community of people who face the same saturation this time of year and who also have to help their kids navigate it. And it doesn't have to be easy. We certainly aren't giving our child a father because it's hard to be different or to miss out on an experience that most other kids have, and why should we feel obligated to do so with Christmas? Our family is already different, and being different is going to require many conversations and a lot of work that I am definitely willing to do.

Material Girl

I have a decent level of guilt about being insistent upon giving birth, considering my views on adoption and how humans are destroying the Earth. There are so many children out there who need homes – I work with them every day. Knowing that, knowing what humans are doing to our planet, and knowing that pregnancy wouldn’t just “happen” for me because I’m in a same-sex relationship, it would seem like an obvious answer that I would choose to adopt. But I just can’t let go of the idea of being pregnant. It’s something I crave with every fiber of my being, and have since I was a little girl breastfeeding my dolls. I know that I will regret not having the experience.

So, because I cannot put aside this selfish desire without pretty severely impairing my quality of life (drama queen, I know), I am making a commitment to try to make my family have as small of a carbon footprint as I reasonably can. I have long wondered how a registry would work for a baby shower of mine when I am hoping for many gifts of lightly used items that would otherwise just get thrown away. Why do I need a brand new crib, for example? Why do I need a brand new infant tub? High chair? I would be sublimely happy if a shower included people bringing items they would otherwise toss aside, and kept me from having to consume new products.

While this sounds so great in theory, however, I was tested this weekend on my own consumerist attitude. Yes, while I have noble intentions, it’s still there. I’m a product of my society like everyone else.

We fully moved into our house last week Tuesday, when we were settled enough to bring the cats there. This past Sunday, we went back to the apartment at my in-laws’ where we spent the last three months, and we packed up everything that was left and took half of it with us that day. While doing so, my mother-in-law came downstairs to help with cleaning and pointed out Nicole’s baby furniture. There was a desk and headboard bookshelf looking thing, and she said there was a matching dresser in storage. She offered it to us, saying we could take it whenever we need it, it would be there waiting for us. Nicole got so excited, both because it’s her baby furniture and nostalgia is a powerful thing, and also because she loves the way it looks. The issue is – I don’t so much. It’s cute, it’s sweet – but it’s very dated. It has sort of a fake wood laminate look, which was all the rage in 1983 but not so much in (fingers crossed) 2014. The next issue is that they don’t have the crib anymore. How will I get a changing table and crib that match this stuff?? What kind of mishmash will my nursery look like? They’re so old-fashioned, and not in a cute vintage way, and not in a way that would go with anything else I would want to buy.

As I’m saying this, I’m realizing maybe this is more of a little-girl furniture set, not a nursery set (what infant needs a desk?) so it may be able to be saved for that and may not be such an issue. But I’m going to finish my thought anyway since I’ve already written four paragraphs, and the point remains.

I talk dreamily about repurposing other people’s items so that I can minimize my consumerism in having a baby, and then as soon as I’m offered perfectly good furniture which my wife loves, my heart sank at not being able to have my own, or more accurately, not having that perfect matchy nursery that you see in magazines and on TV. Do I need all that stuff? Am I going to need a cutesy teddy bear lamp that the kid will outgrow in a few years, or will that perfectly good lamp currently in the guest bedroom that won’t quite match do just as good of a job?

Not only do I not need or wish to contribute to the purchase of more new items and ultimately more garbage, but I also don’t need to spend money that isn’t necessary. Buying a house outside of NYC is no joke – our property taxes alone are more than what most people pay in rent in most of the rest of the country. We are going to have to budget carefully to have a child, even on two decent salaries, and I don’t want to throw away money that isn’t needed.

I guess I pictured myself as being this humble earthy mother who was one step from using a dresser drawer as a crib like in the olden days. This one flash just made me realize how much following through with this ideal will truly be a challenge for me, at least more than I would have liked to think.

Intro to Judaism - Week 6

The suggested topic for this week is “How do I feel about a Jewish wedding? What do I think about an afterlife?” While seemingly two unrelated subjects, this is a continuation of discussion and readings on the Jewish life cycle, and I do want to touch on both.

After much thought, I decided that I wanted to convert to Judaism about six months before our August 2011 wedding. What I did know right away was that (1) it was too late, too much was in place (particularly our officiant, the mother of a friend who happens to be a Wiccan priestess!), and we knew too little to majorly impact or alter our wedding plans, and (2) I did not want to rush this process just for the sake of having a Jewish wedding; that wasn’t my motivation. So we let it lie until after our wedding, and then began “temple-shopping” so we could get the feel of services before reaching out to a rabbi and moving forward from there.

I enjoy reading about what a Jewish wedding entails, and I do learn about pieces of it that I think it would have been nice to incorporate. However, our wedding was so meaningful to us that I wouldn’t change it for anything. We had a personal and spiritual connection with our officiant, we created our ceremony entirely on our own, and everything was laden with meaning personal to us. We did decide even before our wedding that we would like a ketubah (a wedding contract), but it seemed that it would be more significant, and would just make more sense, to create it after I have converted. We still plan to do that, and I also would like to see if our rabbi would marry us again so that we have our union blessed by her. I’m not sure if that’s something that can happen, or if there is some other somewhat private ceremony we could do that would have similar meaning, but it’s something I’d like to find out about because it would mean a lot to us. My parents did that when my mother converted to Catholicism several years into their marriage, after having gotten married in a Baptist church.

The afterlife – now this is something I was eager to learn about! About two years ago, I asked my close friend Allyson (a conservative Jew who has been an awesome mentor throughout my journey) what the Jewish view was on the afterlife. This was when I was first considering Judaism, and really just trying to get more information. I wasn’t sure what I believed, but I did know I didn’t believe in a concrete view of a Heaven – golden gates, clouds and sunshine, milk and honey. She was kind of stumped and said, “I don’t really know. We don’t focus on that so much. We focus on how we live our lives on Earth.” That was the best response I could have gotten.

Now, almost two years later, reading about the Jewish perspective on the afterlife confirms what Allyson presented, and gives me a better understanding of it. Jews believe the soul is immortal, but do not have much more structure or clarity than that. There is not a “heaven” that is seen as a reward – Jews believe you are rewarded on Earth with how faith enhances one's life, and that you should focus on prayer, Torah study, and acts of charity, in working toward the Messianic age. (Christians believe the Messiah already came, so it makes sense that they would have a different concept of the afterlife.) Likewise, there is also no “hell” that is seen as a punishment. When you atone for your sins on Yom Kippur and pray to be written in the Book of Life, that is a prayer to live another year. You are not atoning and asking to go to heaven, you are atoning and asking for a year of health and life. I am handed religious tracts on the subway pretty frequently, and they almost always start with, “Do you know where you’re going when you die?” The implication is that one should live a more righteous life (and/or ask for forgiveness through Jesus Christ) in order to be sure of a place in Heaven. For Jews, it is not so much about eternal reward, but about your life on Earth – a reward of peace and spiritual strength through a righteous life. It just makes so much sense to me.

There are references to "the heavens," but as a place where God and angels are, not as a place for people. There are references to "the world to come," but that is for all righteous people, regardless of their religious affiliation or level of religious observance, which is just kick-ass. One of the things I struggled with when I began to withdraw from religion was the idea that there was one right way to believe that would get you to "heaven." I remember my aunt, who is born-again Christian, saying that people who don't know about Jesus will not be punished in hell because they didn't have the opportunity, they never knew. But people who are told about Jesus, learn about him, and still reject him, will spend eternity in hell. My first question for her was, "Then why would you tell people about Jesus when you know that if they don't listen, they're now going to hell? Wouldn't you want them to stay safe?" Of course the answer was that it's better to try because it's so important that they be saved. But still, the whole idea has always bothered me. I love that even a religion that speaks of a "chosen people" acknowledges righteous people across all demographics and honors them equally.

When I wrote my first journal entry for this class, I wrote that one of my concerns was getting answers to my questions that I can’t agree with and might jeopardize my ability to sincerely convert. The biggest question in my mind as I wrote that was about the concept of Satan and Hell. That was one of the first things I let go of as a questioning young adult that resulted in my moving away from Christianity. It didn’t make sense to me with my idea of a merciful and compassionate God. It seemed like a primitive concept that was intended to motivate people to act a certain way (and yes, I’m very aware that one could also say that for Jews about being written in the Book of Life). Jews believe that seriously evil people do not have a place in "the world to come," and if bodies are indeed resurrected in the Messianic age, theirs will not be. But they do not go to a place where they are eternally tormented or in fire.

Jews leave a lot of possibilities, acknowledging that you can't know much of what happens in the afterlife. I love that because it's so honest, even if it offers little security or comfort through hard truth. "The world to come" is when the Messiah comes and ushers in an age of peace and then God will restore people to their bodies (questionable how literally this is meant?). Where do the souls of the deceased go until then? Well, there's really no way to know for sure. You could believe that they just sort of float around Earth, hanging out with their loved ones, or you could believe in reincarnation. There are so many possibilities and no way to know the truth.

Speaking of the Messiah, liberal Jews have interpreted this to mean that we are waiting for the Messianic age - so it may not necessarily be one individual who comes to save the world, but could be a time or place in which the world is saved. This brings in the concept of "tikkun olam," which is my agency's motto and means "repair the world." The idea is that we all have a responsibility to bring this age about. I love the idea of taking on that responsibility ourselves and working to improve the world and bring about peace, instead of waiting for that mystery person to show up and do it for us.

Everything I have read and studied has just made me feel more at peace and more sure of my decision. With every question that gets answered, another piece fits into the puzzle.

Intro to Judaism - Week 5

To cut or not to cut? Never before was that a question.

When we first started talking about conversion, I told Nicole that I felt so strongly against circumcision that no way would I allow "them" to pressure me into it if we have a baby boy. Even if it meant being ostracized, I couldn't do something to my child that I felt was wrong just to fit in or receive approval.

Don't try to tell me it's "cleaner." The American Medical Association stopped recommending it years and years ago, acknowledging that there was no medical benefit. Circumcision for non-religious reasons is really an American and Canadian phenomenon - why is that? Is all of, say, Europe just filthy people? And if it's so much cleaner, and we can't just teach our boys how to properly wash themselves, shouldn't we start removing labia so we don't have to teach girls how to clean between them either? Sure would make it easier and "cleaner."

There is an evolutionary reason for the foreskin. It's protective and it maintains the sexual sensitivity of the glans by keeping it moist instead of dry and callused. And for every story of someone who had issues with their foreskin as an older child or adult and had to have it removed then, there is a story of a botched circumcision that left the male with discomfort the rest of their lives. So don't give me those anecdotes as a reason to circumcise either.

What it comes down to is that I have trouble with the idea of making a permanent alteration to my child's body without their consent, when I see no necessity for it. I've had a couple Jewish people mention how it's cleaner and "looks nicer" - which is of course entirely subjective, as I've only ever been exposed to an uncircumcised penis (my first sexual partner and boyfriend of six years) and think THAT looks nicer - but no one is going to win me with that argument. A religious conviction that this is the best thing for my child would be the ONLY thing that could convince me. It doesn't make sense to me for a Jew to try to convince me of the cleanliness of it, or other perceived benefits, when Jews have never circumcised for that reason.

I told Nicole that I can't wait to actually sit down with our rabbi to talk about this, because I have such a high level of respect for her that I think, if she can approach it sensitively with regard to my concerns and reservations, she might be able to get to me. Unfortunately we have struggled to make appointments with her - we took a break for the Jewish holidays which would keep her very busy, and then the hurricane happened and threw everything out of whack.

Then I read the assigned readings in regards to circumcision, and DAMMIT if they don't know how to get to me. The writers acknowledge that there is no other reason to do it except for the fact that it is a covenant with God. The fact that they don't try to convince the reader on other reasons for it took down that initial guard I have up when the topic arises. I found myself being less resistant and more open to what I was reading, and understanding better the reason for it. I also found myself feeling less scared of the actual procedure, which seems so different in a loving, celebratory home environment in the arms of a godparent than strapped to a board in a hospital.

I'm still struggling with it, and probably always will, but I think that's okay. I do have to say I'm surprised that I'm even considering it, though. And while it's a relief in some ways, it's also a bit of a disappointment. I've been such an advocate against circumcision (mostly just against doing it based on myths - I think parents should do their own research before making a decision instead of just going along with it) and it's kind of a let down to be going backward. I still feel uncertain and I still have a hard time with making such a permanent alteration to my child's perfect body, but I also don't want my own militance on the issue to compromise my son's sense of spirituality and connectedness to his God and his community.

Almost There!

We are almost moved into our house, and it feels so amazing. Nicole and her father and cousin moved all the furniture and boxes in Friday morning, and then we spent today cleaning, arranging, and unpacking the kitchen. We just need to get the cats over there, pack up the clothes and dishes from our current temporary apartment and take them over, and then we can really move in. Our living room is so cozy and our bedroom is so bright and sunny. I am in absolute heaven.

My father-in-law has been painting the rooms for us, and today he did the future nursery. Seeing it finished, in a soft yellow, just made it so real. Even Nicole, who is often resistant to talking about babies because it makes her nervous about finances, said, "There's really nothing else this room can be. It's really ready for babies." I get lost gazing into it, imagining starting our family. When I flopped across our just-put-together bed, I pictured the kids running in early on a Saturday morning to make sure we're up. I can't believe we're here, in our home.

Happy doesn't even describe it.

Intro to Judaism - Week 4

This week's topic is prayer - and what a rich topic it is for me. I have wrestled with prayer since I was a kid old enough to start thinking about the meaning of it. I struggled with questions such as: Do we have a right to be asking for things? Are some things too petty to ask for? How does praying for someone work? And "prayer chains"? Is it a popularity contest where someone without enough prayers may die? If praying hard enough or fervently enough helped someone heal, then wouldn't the converse be true as well, and what does that say about our "merciful" God? And if praying doesn't help yourself or others with a requested improvement, then what's the point?

My sister told me some time ago, and I've since read it in Jewish texts and heard it from our rabbi, that her priest had said prayer is more about your relationship with God. I write more about that here. Prayer strengthens my faith and my sense of comfort and peace. Prayer helps me focus on my goals and desires and propels me toward action. Prayer reminds me of what is needed by those I love. Prayer centers me. Prayer impacts how I relate to others.

That one shift in perspective on the purpose of prayer and how it works has impacted my entire sense of spirituality. It made me feel like I could return to prayer, and I've slipped back into it almost seamlessly - a little awkward at first, but it was like riding a bike.

Also, to end this brief post on a random note, one of my readings mentioned that there are three types of prayer - petition, thanksgiving, and praise/worship - and that you should avoid prayers of petition on Shabbat since it is God's day of rest. Whether or not most Reform Jews adhere to this, I have no idea - but it immediately made sense to me in a sweet way, and I have embraced it as something meaningful for me. It has been an enjoyable and fulfilling challenge to spend my silent moment of prayer in services making sure that I am only offering up praise or gratitude.

Intro to Judaism - Week 3

Reading about Shabbat in the past few weeks has made a significant impact on my experience of it. Understanding its meaning makes me feel compelled to honor Shabbat. I am learning about many traditions, customs, and rituals, and finding what is meaningful to me – many things are not (or at least not yet), but I took to observance of Shabbat almost immediately. It just clicked with me.

I remember in one of our first meetings with Rabbi R, she suggested we start thinking about how to honor Shabbat at home, because observance in home life is very important to Jews. She gave the idea of lighting candles. We never did this because it felt awkward and contrived, but now I know why – because we didn’t get what it was for, not on a spiritual level anyway. It felt like we were mimicking someone else’s tradition. It didn’t feel like it had meaning for us.

Recently this has changed a great deal, just from learning about it. Now I’m eager to embrace it as my own, as something that is personally significant. The last couple of Shabbat services have felt entirely different – joyous and a little emotional. When we first began going, I looked so forward to the sermon (d’var Torah?) because that’s where I felt stimulated, that’s where I felt like I was learning; the rest of the service, while basically enjoyable, felt too long and repetitive. I felt antsy to get to the sermon, and then disappointed when it seemed over so quickly. Now I enjoy every part of the service (maybe still not quite so much the exhaustive naming of all the Yahrzeits and people in need of healing, but I understand and respect the purpose). I enjoy every prayer, every chant, every reading. It just all has a different feel, and I can’t quite explain it.

I’ve also had to start thinking about how I’m going to observe Shabbat OUTSIDE of temple. Now the idea of lighting our own Shabbat candles is nice. But I feel compelled to take it further than that. I have really relished the last few Shabbatot in a way that was entirely new to me. I felt happy and relaxed and rejuvenated. I tried not to do anything unless I took pleasure in it – so it may be considered “work” technically, but it wasn’t work to me if I enjoyed it. For example, going over to our new house together last Saturday to wash down our cabinets was refreshing, sentimental, and exciting as we prepared our new home.

I’m not always comfortable talking about my conversion to people who don’t get it, or who themselves are uncomfortable with it – and this leads to a challenge if I want to make sure I don’t work at my actual job on Shabbat. This would mean stating that I can only take the weekday on-call shifts, and that I can only work on Sundays. It could even mean having to leave before 4:00 in the winter in order not to be at work at sundown. All of this means exposing myself quite a bit, but it’s something I’m feeling increasingly strongly about, so I may have to make that leap.

Homeowners!!!

It is absolutely surreal that we became homeowners two hours ago.

We started to get a little anxious when the seller and her attorney weren't there after almost an hour. (We were there 20 minutes early.) They were both late separately, which was kind of obnoxious. We used that time to write out a few checks and sign about a zillion documents.

The seller was awesome, icing on the cake. It feels so good to buy a house from someone who is warm and eager to see it go to good people. She is a middle-aged widow with six grown children, and she and her husband lived in the house since 1984 when they moved in with their two babies. Our agent had told us that she was moving because her husband had recently died, and it was all I could do not to cry when she told her attorney, "I brought Teddy's death certificate in case you need it again." They had just put work into the house, seemingly anticipating staying in the house for quite some time still. I can't imagine raising your family in a house and then leaving when your partner dies, after renovating the bathroom together, putting in custom window treatments, etc. Making it yours now that your kids are out of the house. She said the next project was going to be to refinish the wood floors. I said, "Oh we are doing that before we even move in!" and she got so excited. She said she wished she would be able to see them, and I told her to feel free to drop in next time she's in town.

She said that the house was "always busy and full of family and love," I told her we hope to give it that same life, and she gave me such a warm hug. She said she's grateful to be living near her son in Connecticut now, because otherwise we would probably start to wonder about the strange woman we keep seeing in the driveway.

Before meeting her, I felt guilty about feeling so happy to get this house when it's because of such terrible circumstances for someone else. But after we spoke, I felt so happy and at peace. She raised her family in this house, loved this house, tended to this house, and now she is passing it on to a new family to continue bringing in that same energy. It almost feels like the house has a life and spirit of its own. She seemed genuinely happy to see it go to us, and also happy for this whole process to be over so that she can have it behind her and settle in in CT, where she now has a job and a home near her son and her very young grandchildren.

After closing, we went over to the house just to see it and try to grasp that it was really ours. Nicole isn't as sentimental as I am, and is not generally able to sit for long (or sometimes at all) in a place of joy and appreciation before anxiously planning the next thing. So I had long ago let go of the romantic notion of a picnic on the living room floor or a glass of champagne or even just sitting snuggled in a corner of an empty room. I let her pace downstairs and I went upstairs and just cherished every piece of this that is OURS. I touched the wood, the blinds, the bathroom cabinet, the glass doorknobs. I pressed my lips to the wood frame of our bedroom doorway and inhaled the smell. I stared into the small middle bedroom that will someday be our nursery.

Our home.

Insurance Coverage

My agency switched insurance companies this month, so Nicole and I talked about whether it would be worth it for me to switch over to hers. Because of federal discrimination, we would have to pay taxes on whatever my insurance would cost her organization, and we still aren't sure how much that would be and how it would impact this decision. But we DID know that we want family coverage through her insurance after we have a baby, and if hers has better fertility coverage, it would be worth switching now.

I called my provider to ask what the fertility coverage is. The agent read down the list and my heart rejoiced as I heard "artificial insemination, 100% lifetime coverage." But of course I had to go ahead and ask the next question: "Is that automatic, if I were to walk into a fertility clinic, or would I have to meet certain criteria to qualify?" She linked me to the many-paged policy on their website and explained that I would have to show that to my doctor and they would have to show that I qualify based on those criteria. She said to find a fertility doctor, show them this policy and ask their thoughts, ask them the procedure number, call a different number with the procedure number to verify whether it's covered, have the doctor call yet a different number to see if I need pre-certification, and then have the doctor follow through with pre-certification if needed.

Anyone else a little overwhelmed?

The first response had seemed so simple, and was certainly very welcome, and five minutes later I felt so discouraged. Reading the extensive policy discouraged me further, as everything is called INfertility treatment, and requires proving infertility in order to get coverage. So in my case, a woman with no male partner, I would have to show twelve unsuccessful insemination cycles to prove infertility. Then my insurance would cover testing, treatment, and further insemination.

According to one particular fertility clinic that I've been looking into off and on for the past year, one cycle of IUI costs $1200. The sperm itself is another few hundred, including the cost of transporting and storing. If I got pregnant the first time, this isn't so bad - but we certainly can't do this every month. For every unsuccessful attempt, we'd have to save up for a few more months before we can afford to try again.

My insurance company's website has a link to LGBT-affirming providers, and reproductive centers were included in that list. I'm sure they deal with this all the time, and maybe they know how to get around this. I sure hope so. Twelve cycles is a LOT of money to put up front before getting coverage, and if we have twelve failed attempts, the path ahead will be rougher as it is.

Post-Sandy Shabbat

Services were cancelled last week in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and resumed this week despite the synagogue not having full power and having no heat. We huddled in the library where they had set up space heaters, and everyone stayed snuggled in their coats until the room warmed up. I LOVED this service.

Seeing people huddled in one room, with a small ark that could only hold one Torah, and an oneg table set up in the same room instead of in the reception room outside the sanctuary - it just felt so makeshift, and yet just as holy as in any other setting. It immediately brought to mind how Jews still observed Shabbat and holidays and rituals even when persecuted. How while fleeing Egypt and in the Holocaust, they would honor Shabbat as closely as possible even while in hiding and in concentration camps and in the wilderness. In our own much less serious situation, the sense of community did not change despite the fact that we were small and cold and crowded, and in fact I actually felt a stronger sense of community than ever before. We were all absorbed in our own post-disaster struggles outside of temple, but we were still able to come together with a spirit of celebration.

It was a smaller group due to the circumstances, and in a very small space. I would think this would make me less of a participant, because I tend to feel self-conscious about it in general since I still feel like somewhat of an outsider and am still learning everything that is going on. I would think being in a smaller group would make me even more aware of myself because I can't hide. But it did the opposite. I sang louder than I ever have, and I chanted loudly and with confidence. Chanting is difficult because you have no way to know where the inflections are except by becoming familiar with it. After ten months of services, I am finally able to join in, and it is AMAZING. I used to follow along in the English because there just wasn't much other way for me to participate. This time I chanted in Hebrew, and FEELING that was more important than knowing the words I was saying.

One of my closest friends, Allyson, who is an observant Conservative Jew, surprised me the other day by telling me that she isn't fluent in Hebrew and that most non-Orthodox Jews aren't. She said Hebrew school is mostly for learning how to read the Hebrew letters (right now I'm reading the transliteration) but that they don't just speak it to one another, and though they may know enough to get the general gist, most Jews in services don't understand every word spoken. I wrestled with this, wondering what the point is of praying, singing, and chanting in a language you don't understand. Last night I understood. There was something about being a part of worship with an entire community that felt so amazing. And "amazing" is a generic word I'm using because my vocabulary is too limited to find the word that encompasses the experience for me.

I remember Rabbi telling us early on that the biggest part of feeling ready for conversion is when you go from seeing the Jewish community as "they" to seeing them as "we." Last night I felt such a part of it, and that clicked for me. I didn't feel like such an observer. I felt comfortable and moved and connected. I have been feeling increasingly more comfortable, of course, but that service was essentially the "breakthrough" moment for me. Since the last service we attended on 10/19 (10/26 was my best friend's birthday celebration, and the next week was the hurricane), I have started my Intro to Judaism course (10/25) and have done SO many readings. These readings have been incredible, but they have also had me intellectualizing Judaism. I've been craving this for many months, and have enjoyed the opportunity to stretch my brain, to wrestle with God, the Torah and Judaism, and to reflect on all this in my journal, which has always been my most natural and comfortable mode of expression. But without services, the emotional and spiritual piece was separate, without my even realizing it. I've been at a distance from it, curious and fascinated and eager, but not connected. Feeling at home, comfortable, and revived in our own temple with our beloved rabbi, at our first Shabbat service since beginning the course, completed the circle for me.

I feel so happy, at peace, and where I'm meant to be.

Intro to Judaism - Week 2

This week's topic is about what I believe about the Torah. There are specific questions posed, but I'm better at sort of free-writing so I'm going to keep it at that simple summary and go from there.

I was so relieved to read about Reconstructionist Judaism, which I believe is the most recent denomination, if I remember correctly. The founder's view on who wrote the Torah fit like a puzzle piece for me, and actually made me panic for a nanosecond that maybe I should have explored Reconstructionism and what if it fits me more than Reform? Of course I continued reading and realized that Reform still most closely fits how I feel, think, and believe. But in Essential Judaism, it says of the founder: "The sacred texts, he said, are not the product of divine revelation but are the creation of the Jewish people. As such they represent four thousand years of Jewish aspirations towards God." As I read it, I got so excited - "YES, that!!!" This articulates a belief that I have struggled to explain even for myself, and validated a way of thinking that I wasn't sure would be accepted. It seems so...non-religious.

I'm self-conscious of my tendency to intellectualize my spirituality, as if to make it more palatable for myself, to change it to fit me rather than change myself to fit religious truth. But I digressed so much from religion for an entire decade that I can't just abandon my intellectualism in order to re-embrace it. Coming back to religion requires reconciling science and religion, and that is a huge part of why Reform in particular appealed to me. So even though this is a Reconstructionist view, Reform seems, in my limited experience, to allow freedom for this kind of perspective.

I have believed since the age of 19 or 20 that there is no absolute truth that humans can be aware of, and therefore no one correct way of perceiving and explaining God. This is why I sort of shed religion for a while - not because I was an atheist, far from it, but because I felt like I had no right to determine that any one path to God was right or wrong and therefore couldn't determine my own. How could I firmly assert that MY religion was correct, just because I had been raised with it? Wouldn't people in other religions feel the same? Why am I any different? Why am I so sure that I'm right? How can anyone be so sure? Okay, so that's where faith comes in - but then faith must come down to an active choice to believe over common sense, over a broader world view, that your path is the best one - or at least the best one for YOU. And that's how I began to develop mine.

I do believe that an interpretation of God depends on your culture and historical context. I believe that an understanding of God is filtered through the minds of humans who are desperate and eager to understand more than they are capable of. Does that make the stories fables of a sort? Not really. I believe there is truth and fact behind all of it, but that there is an undeniable spin on it that is a result of oral tradition passed down through many generations before being written down. I value these stories for how they have kept God alive for an entire community of people for thousands of years. I value the traditions as part of my wife's culture, which I don't yet feel I can call my own (will I ever feel that I can?), but which will be our children's. I do believe - at least right now, though my faith is constantly evolving - that the Torah is not "the product of divine revelation" but rather "the creation of the Jewish people," and deserving of as much respect and study as if I believed it to be God's own direct word.

The Jewish people have spent millennia studying and interpreting the sacred texts, and (with the exception of Orthodox?) attempting to disentangle the lessons from their historical context in order to apply it to their modern lives. I look forward to doing the same.

Hurricane Sandy

At first it was kind of fun. I remember Hugo hitting when my family lived about 30 minutes from the South Carolina coast. We woke up with our above-ground pool in the neighbor's yard, but as an 8-year-old, it felt like an adventure. We were stocked up on food and water and hunkered down together, all sleeping in one room so us kids would feel safer. Some part of me thought it would be like that this time, except with less damage.

I'm not 8 anymore.

Board games by candlelight and cooking a random assortment of thawing food wore out its welcome after about 24 hours. Then I started to feel crazy. I read on the living room floor, up against the glass doors, and start to feel panicky as the sun sets. I wake up and shower in the cold, and get dressed in the dark, and feel depressed and antsy to get out. I walk around the neighborhood and see trees through people's roofs and on their cars. I see telephone poles snapped in half. I hear on our emergency radio that 100 houses burnt to the ground in Queens. I have to figure out how to get to work with no Long Island Railroad, very limited subway service, and a city out of gas. People are desperate and panicked, siphoning gas from other people's cars, breaking into fights in lines at gas stations that just got a shipment, forming lines over a mile long waiting for gas that just came in and then having it run out when they pull up to the pump eight hours later. Grocery stores are empty because they're without power. People who depend on hourly wages are struggling to feed their families until their workplaces open again and until they can get transportation there. Lower Manhattan is in complete chaos - dark, flooded, and with no subways. Rats are roaming the streets because they got flooded out of the subway tunnels. Homeless people are camped out in the lobbies of apartment buildings whose electric security is down. Cabs are out of gas and the few running subways stop at 34th St and are so packed that you literally get carried onto the car by a mob. Roads are packed the first day after the hurricane because no one can use public transportation, and empty the second day because everyone is out of gas.

It's eerie and post-apocalpytic. For every story of someone helping someone else, there is another of someone taking advantage. Nicole and I are huddled in our cold, dark basement apartment, refusing to leave the cats as neighbors around us (or at least those without generators), and ultimately even my in-laws, flee to the homes of generous family and friends whose power has been restored.

We were supposed to close on our house Monday. All closings are adjourned and pending re-inspections at the bank's expense. We are trying to figure out our next step when we are in oases of power, like at work or at Aunt Laura's a mile away. Our Halloween rock-the-dress photo shoot was canceled and our photographer is cheerfully reaching out to us to try to reschedule when we can barely keep our sanity intact.

I'm grateful to be alive, grateful that both the house we live in and the house we are buying are both okay, grateful that we filled on gas before the storm and stocked up on dry goods and water, grateful to wake up in our cold apartment with our cats happily snuggled up against us for warmth, grateful for salaried jobs where we can take days off if needed without affecting our ability to pay bills. But I'm also tired, depressed, lethargic, and, six days later, really ready to have this behind us as a memory.

Intro to Judaism - Week 1

We started our Intro to Judaism class this past Thursday - and boy was it intense! As I posted that evening on Facebook (where you can "journal" in a sentence or two), "thrilled, fulfilled, and entirely overwhelmed." This class is complete with a college-like syllabus (listing the books, weekly assignments, and an absence policy), weekly journal entries, about eight or so books, multiple assigned readings, beginning Hebrew assignments, field trips of a sort, Torah readings, a presentation on one Torah portion, and a final project. Whew! Nicole and I both left feeling exhausted and anxious.

We have been talking about conversion (well, for me - more like rediscovering for Nicole) since spring of 2011, temple-shopped that fall after our wedding, and have been attending services at our current temple since the first week of January 2012. We began meeting with our rabbi in February to talk about conversion, and she explained that it involves taking this class. However, when she went to look up when classes began, she found that they began that very day. It was too last minute for us to go that evening, and we knew we would have to miss several other classes as well for our March vacation and my sister's wedding in North Carolina in April. It was frustrating because we were eager, but we decided it would be better to wait than to have to miss three classes. I wanted to do this the right way, and there was no need to rush it.

We then tried to register for summer classes, after months of antsy anticipation on my part. I was very much enjoying services and our monthly meetings with our rabbi, and I was feeling comfortable enough that I was ready to move to the next step. However, we received a cancellation notice within a couple weeks of registering, due to not having enough participants for a summer course. Strangely, our spring had been very busy but we were free all summer. This was a major disappointment, and when I expressed that to Rabbi, she responded by providing us with a book to read together (As a Driven Leaf - an awesome book that will now have to be on hold for months) and started providing some more structure to our meetings so that we could really start learning. I'm very grateful to her for this.

I then registered for the fall class, and while there was one starting September 25, it was with a male rabbi, and I really feel more comfortable with female rabbis. I appreciate the inherent feminist outlook on everything - how can you NOT consider that with pretty much everything you read and do as a woman? A progressive male rabbi may offer something similar, but I feel that it would be coming more from an intellectual place rather than from an implicit understanding of what it means to be a spiritual woman in a religion that historically has been dominated by males. I also come from a Catholic background and have a deep appreciation for the recognition that women can lead and teach, and I want to support that. This was worth pushing it off yet another month and registering for the October 25 class.

So in we went, hopeful, eager, and anxious. I have always been an avid student, and have very much looked forward to taking a class on something so new to me yet something I'm feeling so connected to and passionate about. I was ready to eat it up! For some reason, it had just never occurred to me that it would feel so intensely overwhelming. I almost felt panicky looking at our stack of books and the list of assignments - which we were already behind on from the first class! I also felt a little nervous about the diverse group of students in the room. This should add to the experience (and surely will), but for the time being it makes me a little nervous. People are there for all different reasons, and I feel less connected to them as a group than I thought I would. I'm hoping that will change.

It also felt odd to have a rabbi different from OUR rabbi. This is really the only temple and rabbi we have known, and it's like I forgot that other people have their own rabbis, different rabbis. It's like I expected Rabbi R to be sitting at the front of the room, ready to teach us, and was shocked and unsettled to find a different person there who also called herself Rabbi. Such a childlike perspective!

I'm excited to FINALLY begin this part of the journey. I have been waiting almost a year. I feel so comfortable in our temple and with our rabbi, and I'm ready for this challenge. I'm ready to shake up my discussions with Rabbi R.

So I guess this serves as my first journal entry. We get suggested topics every week, but we don't have to stick to them, and I kind of just ran with this in my own journal. My syllabus is buried in a stack of books and papers from class on the kitchen table, so I'll just end this with two of the questions I remember from this week's topic: what are your hopes or expectations, and what are your concerns or doubts?

My hope is that I will strengthen my bond with this faith that feels like home to me. My hope is that it will open up conversation between my wife and me as we learn new things together. My hope is that what we do every week at temple will start to make even more sense, and that we will be given history and context for our spirituality.

I worry that I will learn things I don't agree with or don't believe. I have some questions that I don't ask because I'm afraid of the answer, and nervous about what it means if I don't agree. There is a lot of flexibility in Reform Judaism which is part of why it feels like such a natural fit for me. There is room to question and disagree. But it's still a concern in the back of my mind.

I hope I can use this newfound time, with tomorrow off of work for the hurricane, to start tackling some of this reading. Feeling overwhelmed can easily immobilize me into procrastination, and I really don't want to let that happen.

Homemade Muesli

About a week ago, I encountered something that changed my life - muesli.

I was rushing through Penn Station from the LIRR to the subway and needed to get breakfast on the way. I stopped in Au Bon Pain and saw nothing but high-calorie pastries and breakfast sandwiches. Then I saw a refrigerated section with yogurt parfaits and muesli. Mildly intrigued, I grabbed the muesli - and it rocked my world. Sweet, raw, filling goodness!!! I ate it three days in a row, even when I wasn't in such a rush and had the option to have breakfast at home. I felt slightly guilty about the packaging I was throwing away and the money I was spending. I also wished it wasn't quite as sweet. So then I thought, "Hmmm, this certainly seems like something I could make at home." It required a bit of preparation, which I can be really lazy about for planning to-go meals in advance, but I couldn't bear to keep buying something so simple and to keep throwing out plastic cups.

Thus began my adventure in muesli-making. I made it this morning and sent my lovely wife off to work with it, a little anxious about how she would like it because I knew it would be mushy and she has issues with textures. She LOVED it. She came home pleading with me to make more for tomorrow. SCORE for cheap, healthy, and yummy!!

Here is my recipe:

Soak a serving size of plain rolled oats in 1/2 cup of milk overnight. Make sure non-citrus fruits of your choice are prepared the night before, cut up and ready to go in. (I used apple and banana.) In the morning, mix in the sliced fruits, dried fruits (we used a craisin, golden raisin, and dried cherry blend from Trader Joe's) for sweetness, nuts (such as almond slivers) for protein if you have them, and brown sugar. Be sparing with the dried fruits, nuts, and sugar, as they are high-calorie; the mixture should be mostly oats and fresh fruit. Use less sugar if you use dried fruits, as they will sweeten it too. Most of the milk will be soaked up, so add more if you prefer the mixture to be more liquidy.

You can change it up (and I just may) by using different fruits (peaches, berries, pears), seeds instead of nuts, honey instead of brown sugar, juice instead of milk. You can really put in anything you think will taste good. The only crucial element is soaking the oats overnight. I think tonight I will also try mixing in the dried fruits ahead of time so that they have time to rehydrate. In the muesli from Au Bon Pain, I had actually thought the cranberries were fresh because they were round and plump, and was surprised to read on the ingredient list that they were dried. I'm hoping a good overnight soak will give them this effect.

Catching Up

This post will not be so thoughtful and from the heart because I feel like I mostly just need to give a general update, since I have not posted in a month. This will feel a little more like my old journal, where I mostly just logged events for memory, as opposed to using this as an outlet to think things out as I go along. But right now I need just that, a log, because feeling overwhelmed at all that I've missed zaps away what small bursts of motivation to write I've felt in this last crazy month. So here goes.

1. A week before August ended, after much anxiety at not knowing what would happen, we asked our landlord if we could get out of our lease because we were in contract on a house. He gave us the number for his broker, told us to have him list it, and said that we could leave if the broker could get it rented. This was on a Friday. By the next Tuesday, they had found a renter, but they needed it for September 1 so we would have to be out by Friday night. HOLY COW. We had the option of turning this down, of course, and trying for a September 5, 10, or 15 renter - but the prospective tenants were in a tight spot since the apartment they were supposed to move into had just flooded, and it was difficult for us to give up a sure thing and have to hope we would find someone else later. It was also nice knowing we wouldn't have to pay any more rent and could put away more toward house expenses. So we made it happen. It was a crazy few days, but by Friday night we were in my in-laws' one-bedroom basement apartment, with the vast majority of our furniture and belongings stored in their garage.

2. So here we are! We are waiting for a mortgage commitment, and getting a little anxious because the date stipulated in our contract is fast approaching, but in the meantime it's a pretty comfortable living arrangement. I am LOVING taking the Long Island Railroad in for work every day. It is about 15 minutes longer than my previous commute, but infinitely more comfortable. I only take two trains instead of four, and I almost always have a seat. This means I actually have time to get fully and comfortably absorbed in a book. I cannot wait until I am walking to the Floral Park station instead of Bellerose, going to and from MY HOUSE every day. I'm also loving the neighborhood. It's so pleasant to walk in. I miss our apartment because it was our space together - the first place we lived in as a couple, and as newlyweds. But I don't miss our neighborhood at all, and I think that might be a first for me. I am, however, missing dearly my colleague who lived across the street and with whom I have become so, so close. Our commutes both feel so lonely now, and we desperately try to fill the void by spending more time in each other's offices at work than we ever did before.

3. I celebrated my first Rosh Hashanah earlier this month. I work for a Jewish organization and have always gotten the holidays off, but this is the first year that I haven't just seen them as freebie days. I thought I would resent that - but I didn't. I so enjoyed the services and the sense of community and celebration. I enjoyed thinking of the New Year as the birthday of the world, and connecting that to a chance to start fresh as people. I am struggling with my choices around food, so I resolved to make a small, realistic change for now in order to get on a better track. I resolved to take better care of this body I've been given by not putting trash into it. This does not mean everything I eat will be healthy (though ideally it would). It means specifically that I will work to avoid overly processed foods. When I'm craving a crunchy, salty snack, a bag of Lay's potato chips has the ingredients potatoes, oil, and salt, whereas a bag of Cheetos has so many I can't count, nor can I pronounce most of them. So the choice would be clear. Should I regularly devour bags of Lay's then, because it's less processed? Of course not. Limiting junk food in general and being careful around portion control is very important, and I will continue to try to be aware of this. But I know that in order to be successful, I need to set achievable goals and start small. I will choose chicken, rice, and beans from the Dominican restaurant near work instead of McDonald's. I will choose ice cream instead of cartons labeled "frozen dairy dessert" (you have to check with different flavors from the same brand).

4. Last week was my first Yom Kippur. This is the Jewish Day of Atonement, and boy was it work! Fasting from sundown to sundown was the least of it. We went to every single service, which we had not originally planned, and it was excruciatingly exhausting. When I mentioned this to a couple of Jewish friends and colleagues, they said we were crazy, and that they never go to all of them. But not only did we feel the need to know what they all were, we also needed structure for the day since this was new to us. It's supposed to be a solemn day, though there is certainly joy in forgiving and being forgiven, and what would we be doing at home to mark it? You're not really supposed to be having fun while asking God for forgiveness, so what would we do without playing on the computer or watching TV? Would we pray by ourselves all day, or read Torah? And if that's the case, then why not actually go to services? The first was Tuesday night from 8:00-10:30 PM, then Wednesday 10:00 AM-12:30 PM, then 4:00-5:15 PM, then 5:15-6:15 PM, then 6:15-7:00PM, followed by a breaking of the fast. The prayers really helped focus me, and pointed toward things I would not even think of as sins, things we are all guilty of - neglecting or turning our eyes from someone that needs us, for example, or exaggerating a truth for our own benefit. It was really thought provoking. We were also challenged to apologize, make peace, and offer restitution where we have gone wrong. We heard many times that God offers immediate forgiveness for wrongs against God, just by asking, but that where we have wronged others, we can only atone by making peace with them. I love the extremely difficult challenge in this. And I put it into practice by writing an apology note to a former friend with whom I had not spoken in three years. In my initial message, I did not offer excuses nor point out her part in it, but simply apologized for my role in how our friendship ended, the actions for which I was responsible, and the things I wish I had handled differently. She immediately responded with acknowledgement of the courage she knew it took me to write that, and with ownership of HER role in the situation. It was a powerful feeling, and I will never forget how my first Yom Kippur changed my life.

5. On a much lighter note, my brother got married on September 9th in Las Vegas. We had six weeks' notice of their nuptials, because they were not expecting our attendance but simply giving us the option, and of course we all wanted to go. My sister and I left our spouses at home and bunked with my parents to make the last-minute trip more affordable. My brother and his wife had a whirlwind romance, becoming engaged three weeks after their first date and getting married five months after that. I met her at my sister's wedding, a couple of days after they had gotten engaged, and was skeptical and cautious, protective of my brother whose heart had just been shattered the previous December. This trip to Vegas gave me a much-needed opportunity to spend more time getting to know her and to watch her relationship with my brother. I can tell she is genuinely in love with my brother, and it is amazing to see. She is a down-to-earth, goofy girl who is a great fit in our family, and I wish them both all the best.

Speeding Along!

We've been frustrated for so long that now it feels like everything is moving so fast! We were told Wednesday that we are officially in contract and need to go apply for a mortgage. AHHHH! Then Nicole became even more anxious about our lease and if we can't get out of it. (It ends February 1, and the last month is paid, so worst case scenario would be paying through December.) Her mind started running away with her, and she was talking about scenarios such as renting out our second bedroom for a few months.

I nipped it in the bud by calling our landlord that afternoon. I'd had so much well-meaning advice from others, which I'd sought out because I was nervous about not presenting it "right" and being mowed over, and all of it just made me even more nervous. But seeing my wife's state of mind made me take the plunge, and I ultimately decided I just had to be honest and straightforward. I called him and said that we were in contract for a house as of that day, and that this had happened more quickly than we'd anticipated and we hoped there would be a way to resolve the lease. He paused and then said if his broker could rent it out, which he tends to do very quickly, we could go. He gave me the guy's name and number, and I called him. 

I told the broker that I'd spoken to the landlord and he'd given me the green light to have the broker list our apartment. The broker offered such sincere and exuberant congratulations and said he would happily list it, and when would we need to be out of there? I told him as soon as possible, and he asked where we would go if it was rented before the house was ready. I told him we'd already planned to move into my in-laws' basement apartment while the floors are finished and the walls are painted, so we can do that anytime, and I would not want any delay if there is a potential renter. He asked if we were okay with having the super let him or his staff in if we're not home, and I said of course, since that will speed up the process. He said, "Ok, I can rent this in 1-3 weeks. Are ya ready?" He said he wouldn't rent for September 1 if he couldn't give us adequate notice, though I'm not sure what would be adequate since that's a week away!

This conversation happened around 4:30pm Wednesday, on his cell phone while he was driving. Thursday afternoon Nicole got off the elevator to see a broker and a young man leaving our apartment. HOLY COW. So we bought boxes and bins yesterday and are spending this weekend trying to pack away everything we won't need. We only want to bring what's necessary for about two months of living into Nicole's parents' house. I don't want to unpack twice. Clothes, toiletries, four dishes, a pot, a pan, etc. The rest will go straight to their garage and won't get touched until we can move it all into the house. 

I'm getting in touch with my inner minimalist. Who knew? For years I tried so hard to acquire (albeit on a budget) because I kept growing into bigger spaces and needing more "stuff" to make it feel like a home, and to make ME feel like an adult. I'm always ticking things off the list - still need a real coffee table (we're using an old TV stand), end tables, a china cabinet, a real dining room table... I'm having a BLAST packing things away, reducing my life to just a few boxes of (perceived) necessities. It's much more fun and fulfilling than it probably should be!

Allowing the Excitement to Grow!

The seller's attorney should have received the contracts today. We haven't heard yet whether the homeowner has signed, but...Nicole just noticed this on Redfin. (Click on it to make it larger.) GIDDY!!!

Happy First Year!

We had a lovely weekend celebration of our anniversary at a little bed and breakfast in Provincetown, MA. We could only afford two nights, so we spent another at a hotel just outside Cape Cod so that we'd be almost there and wouldn't spend our entire Saturday driving. It was a cute, fun town, and it was nice to celebrate amongst hundreds of other queer folk where we could just be ourselves and not get a second glance. It was just so comfortable.

A year ago this very moment, I was an anxious mess. I had been so calm up until that morning, and then my stomach went haywire. Nicole was the opposite - she had been a bundle of nerves and then, that day, was calm and smiling. We reversed roles and she helped take care of me.

We took today off work too so that we could just relax together. We're going to get lunch at the Outback, our favorite chain casual dining restaurant that we very rarely allow ourselves, and then I'm going to see if I can get my eye-rolling wife to watch our wedding video together and maybe go through some photos. :)

And for myself, I will re-read my private journal post that I made after we got back from our incredible Vermont honeymoon last year, written 9/2/11. (Click "read more" below the photo if you want to read it.)

(Almost) Officially in Contract!

I can't believe how everything is happening for us with this house. After the last post where I began to let myself hope again, we had yet another heartbreak - we were told the next day that someone had offered full asking price and that the owner had accepted that offer. We couldn't match that, and we certainly couldn't surpass it in order to be competitive. There was a lot of crying (me) and anger (her) and discouragement all around. We banded together in a way we haven't had to in quite some time, so I guess I can be thankful for that. The support was just as mutual as the grief.

Meanwhile, we resumed talk about the house in Merrick, but we just couldn't regain our initial excitement about that house. It wasn't Tyson. However, we had to move on, so Nicole said she wanted to see it again before making an offer. I was working late the next two nights, but I didn't feel such a need to see it again, so I arranged between Nicole and the realtor. Nicole had her parents meet her there. I got a full report from all of them afterward. Her parents thought it was worth making an offer but told us the highest they would go considering a few obvious issues with the house. Nicole and I talked it over, and on Wednesday Nicole's mom asked if we wanted to make an offer. I told her that I know it sounds silly, but I was holding out some hope that something would fall through with Tyson and it could be ours - and I didn't want to go too far with Merrick and then find out we could have had a chance with Tyson. I knew it was a long shot, but I wanted it badly enough that I didn't want to close the door.

Then John called on Thursday to say that as soon as they had gone into contract, the buyers started trying to negotiate the price down. They had only offered the asking price to get themselves in the door ahead of other offers and were now playing games. The seller was turned off by this and wanted to accept our offer. John told her that they can't keep toying with us, so that she would have to accept it immediately before anything is even written and would have to agree to stop showing the house. She did!

We stayed nervous because technically, even without her showing it, someone could make another offer and she could still accept it over ours. But it all seems good right now. We got an attorney that day, who was a personal recommendation from my brother-in-law's girlfriend who is an attorney, and the seller's attorney sent contracts to ours on Friday. Our attorney was out of the office and called us on Monday, and we went in at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday to meet with him and sign the contracts. We scheduled the inspection for Thursday at 10:00, because I would be off that day for a Saturday that I worked recently, and the lawyer said he would hold onto the contracts and send them out as soon as we call him to say that the home is structurally sound.

The inspection went AMAZINGLY. We used the same guy that inspected a house in Levittown that we'd made an offer on. We'd backed out of that after his report showed some serious issues, such as with electrical and plumbing. He couldn't believe how much better this house was and kept telling us how glad he was we didn't go through with the Levittown house. He raved about things I wouldn't even have known to look for. He told us never to get rid of the toilet bowls because they are really expensive and top-of-the-line - who would have guessed?? He said the renovation of the full bath was a $15 or $20,000 job and that they didn't chintz on it; the cabinets are solid, the plumbing was done in an ideal way that's more expensive, and the fan is a $2 or $300 fan that runs silently. Everything that they did in the house was properly installed and solidly constructed. The owner is a middle-aged widow, and I think they put a lot of money into the work they did because they thought they'd be there for life. But after he died, she moved to Connecticut to live with her son. It's kind of a weird feeling that we are benefitting so much from their tragedy - but I'm glad their home that they put so much love and work into is going to help raise a new family and give them amazing memories.

After the inspection, I called the lawyer immediately and told him to go ahead and send out the contracts. I guess we will hear from him when she has signed, and then we will be officially in contract! Much scariness lays ahead, particularly with applying for a mortgage, but at least we will be securely locked in without the threat of someone else taking it from us. This house is so perfect for us, and worth the tug-of-war on my heart!

Dare I Hope?

The first time I walked into a Jewish synagogue and opened a prayer book, I saw this: "Pray as if everything depended on God; act as if everything depended on you." This is a running theme throughout Judaism, and something I love about this belief system. There is no "let go and let God" mentality. Yes, trust God and continue communicating with God, but don't use that as a reason for inertia.

Anyway, I thought about this last night after leaving a voicemail for the realtor about the Merrick house. We had been playing a bit of voicemail tag in my efforts to make an offer. Nicole's mom asked yesterday if we were going to make an offer, and I told her that I was trying to reach the person but that I was hesitant. She asked if I didn't think it was right for us, and said that if we're set on Floral Park, we shouldn't settle. I said that we're not at all set on Floral Park, especially since we haven't seen anything else decent there in our price range. I said that we had LOVED the Merrick house and were 100% confident in making an offer before we ever saw Tyson, so it wasn't about Merrick not being right for us; it was about not being able to let Tyson go. It's THE ONE. Then I told her that I had this slight fear that we would start to go through with Merrick, be caught up in the process, and find out the offer on Tyson had fallen through and we would have had a chance after all. Nicole's mom asked if I would feel better if she called John the realtor back to confirm that the offer was accepted, that it's going through, and that it's a dead deal before I call back the Merrick realtor. I said YES, please, that would make me feel much better. At least I would know we'd done everything we could and it was out of our hands.

So she called John back and upped our offer a little bit, to just above the other offer. (We shouldn't even know what the other offer is, technically, but apparently John knows the owner and has more information than he should.) We also reapplied online for a new preapproval as soon as we got home from work, and we were granted it. So he said we may actually have a good shot at this. But the catch is - I think he told them we could put 20% down, which we definitely can't. We can do 10%, and even at that would have to borrow some from Nicole's parents for closing costs. (They don't just have it - they would take out a small loan and we would pay it back with interest.) Would this be a dealbreaker if John corrects that misinformation for the owner? I don't know. It doesn't make sense to me that it would, because as long as we're approved for the mortgage, the owner still gets her money. If anyone should be worried about it, it should be the bank, and they already take care of that by slapping you with PMI.

I have no clue whether this will work out for us. There could be an accepted offer already. The homeowner could tell the other person that there's a higher offer and ask us both to give our best (which we've already done!). I'm nowhere close to confident about this. But I'm relieved to be back in the game. If it doesn't happen, I'll know it wasn't because I didn't take action or because I gave up as soon as I heard there was already an offer. After that, it's out of my hands.

Heartbreak

I dared to indulge in a daydreamy, glowing post about the amazing house on Tyson, inviting others to share in my anxious excitement, and a few hours later got a call from my father-in-law that our agent found out there is already an offer on the table. And a hefty one, too. One we can't outbid. We are devastated. We had anticipated the unlikely but possible kinks that could arise, but this is one we certainly didn't expect - he should have done his homework before taking us. We never even should have seen the house. And now Merrick is less appealing because we let ourselves love Tyson.

Merrick is beautiful, though it did have a couple of drawbacks. We came home from seeing it set on making an offer. But we figured we should just see this last one we'd been told about before doing so. And we fell hopelessly in love. And now it's gone. Could we wait it out in case it falls through? Sure, but that's a gamble because we could end up with nothing. We DID love Merrick before seeing Tyson. Myrtle Beach looks like a great vacation and you're completely happy with it until you think you might be able to go to St. Thomas for the same price. Then when no flights are available to the Caribbean, Myrtle Beach is a bit of a bummer. How do you regain that initial excitement? Does this mean we SHOULDN'T be bidding on Merrick? Was this to keep us away from it? Do I even believe in signs like that?

We loved the house in Merrick. We loved how unique it was, how much character it had, the beautiful kitchen, the sweet backyard. But it has nothing on Tyson. We dreamed ourselves right into that house, no matter how much we tried not to. I could picture where the Christmas tree would go, how we'd be able to pull up the driveway in the back and go right into the kitchen with our groceries, where we'd put a vegetable garden.

Will we be happy in Merrick? Sure. But I worry that I'll always wonder how nice it would have been to have that super short commute, to be able to walk up to a sweet village, to make that beautiful home ours. If we had just never seen it, we would be ecstatic over Merrick. That kills me.

I hope I can let it go. Time heals. And who knows, maybe Merrick is gone too and we will just start over.

Holding my Breath

I've fallen in love. Hard.

We've had so many disappointments and near misses when it comes to househunting that I almost feel like it's bad luck to let myself get hopeful - until I remind myself that I'm not superstitious and I need to allow myself to get cautiously excited. And that means being able to talk about it without fear of "jinxing" it, and opening myself up to having to talk about the hurt too if it doesn't work.

We've been looking for a house for about a year, as I've posted about before. Houses in Long Island are so expensive, and the taxes are even worse. It's impossible to get anything livable under $300k, which is insane to me because that could practically get you a mansion where I'm from. This has made the search all the harder; if we could afford $450k, we'd be just fine. But we have to hover between $300-$350, and it doesn't get you much. The few times we find something that seems to be getting us quite a bit for that price, it's snatched up before we can even get a glimmer in our eyes. Mortgage rates are low and it's a competitive market, and our price range isn't. People who have been casually thinking about looking for a house at some point in the future are grabbing at NOW because of the market. We are just starting out and just happen to be caught up in the rush.

We looked at a couple very promising prospects yesterday, which had me feeling more hopeful than I have in a long time. We were actually ready to make an offer on something we saw out in Merrick, when Nicole suggested we look at that one last option that this Floral Park realtor (John) had to show us. He lives in the area, has become very friendly with Nicole's dad over the past six or nine months that we've been working with him, and he said we could just call him up because the houses are empty and he has the keys. Up until now, he's mostly shown us two-family homes, which I'm really resistant to but trying to stay open to since Nicole and her parents are both okay with it (they would go in on it with us and rent out their part), unaffordable single-families, or dilapidated affordable single-families. Floral Park is just expensive. So while it's a nice area, I certainly don't NEED to be there. I've actually started to really like Merrick, and we've continued to look farther out on the island while John shares new listings as they come up.

John took us over to this house but I could tell he really thought we weren't too interested. Nicole's dad had told him we had gone back out to Merrick to look at the other house again (Nicole wasn't with me the first time), and John was pretty sure (as were we!) that we'd make an offer there. So he was informative but relaxed, not at all pushy, and we just absorbed everything.

The house sits about a block off of Jericho Turnpike, the main road. (The Merrick house was only one house away from a main road, so this was actually further off than what we'd already been willing to settle for.) It has a house on each side of it, then some sort of business building (not commercial, but I'm not sure exactly what it is) closer to Jericho. There is a small, two-story apartment complex across the street. The house to the right is on the corner, and there is a stone Verizon building across that street (an office building, not a store). Then there are houses on every other street. So THAT is part of why this house is actually in our price range. If you're looking in that neighborhood, the streets that are all residential are going to be more valued than the street that has a few houses and a smattering of other things. They aren't big commercial buildings, and the street is connected to the rest of the neighborhood where our kids can play, go to cookouts, and trick-or-treat, so it's not a big deal to me. I'm okay with that being our compromise!

It's a desirable, populated area close to the city, so the houses are narrow and long to maximize space, with the bottom floor being railroad style. The house was built in 1925 and has clearly been very well taken care of. You walk into what is either a large mudroom or a small sunroom. It has a ton of windows. Then you walk into the modest-sized living room, and then you walk through to the dining room, and then the kitchen. The stairs (which are beautiful!) go up from the dining room. All the floors and moldings are original wood and they are so gorgeous! The doors are original with these interesting looking cut glass knobs. We both love the cozy charm of the house - we wouldn't want to replace or change any of that! The woman who owns it now does something with blinds for a living, and she has brand new Anderson windows with nice blinds in them (some wooden ones downstairs!). She also replaced the front door recently. So the things that needed fixing are fixed, and the things that don't, she left alone. It's perfect. The only thing needed is a good sanding of the wood floors.

Upstairs is a long hallway with a railing to the left looking over the staircase, two small bedrooms and a GORGEOUS remodeled bathroom on the right, and then the modest-sized master bedroom at the back. There is only one small closet in each room, but again, something I'm willing to compromise for everything else that is perfect. There is room to put in a wardrobe, so I'm fine!

The kitchen could use some updating. It has old, cheap cabinets and countertops. However, they're clean and workable, so that would be a "someday" dream." The appliances are all brand new. And it has my little dream of a window over the sink! I don't know why I want that so much, but it's just always been a part of my vision of a house. Something that has always made having a house stand out from having an apartment is the idea of washing a dish at the sink and being able to look out at the yard. I don't know why it gets me so much, but I look for it in every house, even though it's obviously not a dealbreaker.

There is a half-bath off the back, a door to the basement, and a door to the backyard. The basement is finished and looks just like the other rooms - wood floor, white walls, good shape. It's a nice rectangular shape (we've seen some crazy basement layouts!) that you could easily make into a playroom, rec room, or even guest room once the upstairs rooms are occupied (omg!). The washer and dryer are down there in a little utility room where the oil tank is.

The house is run on oil, but the stove is gas. So there are gas lines in the house and you could convert to gas heat for about $5,000, which would be a much cheaper bill. This is true for the Merrick house too, but most of the houses we've looked at are either fully on oil with the option to convert for about $10,000 (because there is no gas in the house) or without the option to convert because there are no gas lines in the neighborhood. So this is a HUGE plus.

The backyard is small and a reminder that this is sort of an urban house. But it's THERE. There is grass, there are nooks where I can put my vegetable garden, there is an area for kids to play. There may not be enough room for a full swingset like I'd envisioned, but there is play space.

I'm nervous. We've made a low offer, and we know what we're willing to go up to. The realtor knew our price range and still showed us this, making it clear to us that the owner is ready to go. Apparently they already had a contract and moved out into their new home, and the sale fell through because the buyer's own home sale had fallen through, and buying this was contingent upon selling theirs. So the home is empty and they're paying hefty taxes every month while not even living in it.

I'm also hoping that there isn't a lot of activity on it because I don't know of an open house having happened recently. Usually when we make an offer, it's amidst a flurry of other interested potential buyers and we know our offer is competing with people who can probably pay closer to the asking price. I'm hoping that no one is really looking at this one, and that the owner will be so relieved to have an offer, that they will work with us a little. And I hope no one else suddenly comes forward with a better offer. We know now that we can get approved for a mortgage, so if we can just cinch a sales agreement, we might be good to go. I don't want this to slip through our fingers. It's perfect for us. It's sweet, modest, clean and move-in ready, spacious enough without being big and "too much house," and it's in a GREAT location as far as being walking distance to the railroad and so close to the city. I could take any job in Manhattan and have a normal commute, no more than what I'm doing now from Queens. That hasn't been true for anything else we've looked at, because it's difficult to find within our budget.

All prayers and positive energy are greatly appreciated. I'm so ready to build our nest together. We've been frustrated and disappointed so many times, and I'm just ready! This house is so perfectly us that getting it would make me understand why (and be grateful for!) not getting the others.

Reflections on a Birthday (or, feeling the alarm go off on my biological clock)

There's nothing like a birthday to get you thinking a lot about having kids.

Yesterday was my 29th, and it was wonderful. Nicole booked us a hotel in downtown Manhattan, and we frolicked around in the city like tourists. It culminated in NYC Pride on Sunday, my actual birthday. It always falls on the weekend that I would be celebrating my birthday, and one other year (my first Pride, actually) on my exact birthday. I have skipped Pride a few times just because I don't always want my birthday celebration tied up with it. This year we agreed not to go to the parade itself, but just to Pride Fest, where it would be less crowded.

One of the booths was for a fertility association that specializes in helping start LGBT families. They gave me a bag for women (they also had ones for men) that included pamphlets and information. The director of the organization was running the booth, and I teasingly asked him to verify whether starting a family at 37 was a good idea. Nicole and I had butted heads on this a little bit a few weeks ago. I want to be done having children by 35, which I know we've discussed before but I guess Nicole had forgotten. Feeling like there was a timeframe made her nervous, so even though we have never entertained the thought of waiting that long, she started talking about people she knows who had babies at 37 etc. and were perfectly fine. I started to panic a little, but reminded myself that she has to make things a distant, remote thing in the future in order to cope with the stress of it (right now househunting is making her unable to think about kids) and that this does not mean she actually wants to wait til then, but that she can't deal with the pressure of a deadline. I've learned this about her and have to reign in my tendency to be reactive. So I ended the discussion and knew the only answer was to wait silently and patiently until we are done with this house business, and then she will be in a different place.

Knowing the sensitivity of this, I probably shouldn't have half-joked with the director for him to persuade Nicole. It came off as passive-aggressive and making her feel vulnerable. But the point is, when I said, "So is it a good idea to wait til we're 37 to start trying to conceive?" I didn't expect the exact answer I got. He said that we would probably be looking at using donor eggs at that point, because we would have fewer viable  eggs ourselves and already have to go through a lengthy process to try to get pregnant. He then said that the first decline in fertility is at 27, and the next at 33. He said, "I'm not saying this to sound sexist, I'm saying it because it's biological fact. Societal expectations are different and people wait longer and that's okay, but our bodies are still meant to have their prime childbearing years in their early and mid 20s."

Women get pregnant all the time at 27 and later, so I'm not exactly panicked. But I did feel a little bit of worry, just because I've always thought I'd be fine if I had them before 35. But 35 is the age where it becomes riskier, and yes, more difficult to conceive. It's logical that that doesn't mean you're super fertile until the day you turn 35, and then your fertility drops. Of course it's going to start waning. I just wasn't thinking in my head that, at 29, I'm already less fertile than I was just three years ago.

Does this change anything? Not really. I'm already here, and there's nothing I can do. And there's nothing I could have done at 26 either - I had just started dating Nicole. But my "well, what's another year in the grand scheme of things?" belief that I have to convince myself of from year to year has definitely been challenged. And I think the reason it affected me most is that I feel ready now in every other sense. We're just waiting to have a house, and that is taking forever. I hate that that is the only real obstacle, and that my fertility is just ticking away while we work toward it. But I'm not willing to compromise it, because I value my wife's mental health and she cannot handle the stress of both at the same time, and because we will be able to save infinitely less toward a down payment once we have a baby on the way.

So here I sit, trying to be patient while my body keeps churning out all my good eggs. *sigh*