If I Forget Thee...

I keep telling myself to blog more. Not that my life is all that interesting these days, but I'm sure there are those out there who would still read about my apartment hunting trials, or random Cara-type murmurings.

But I can't write it. I have friends facing far more difficult, trying obstacles than finding a new apartment, or trying to figure out how to juggle work and school. All things considered, my life is chugging along fairly smoothly. My world seems to trivial.

The events of the past 48 hours have made me feel my own triviality even more strongly. I should never have left Israel. I know my family and friends here in America sleep more soundly at night knowing that I am in Chicago, but I don't. I toss and turn at night, unable to sleep, wondering and worrying. In waking hours, I constantly check Israeli news sources, obsessing over every new article or lck thereof.

I feel like I abandoned my home. Part of me knows that this is irrational. I left two months ago, before Shalit was kidnapped, before Hezbollah started this on the Lebanese border. I left to go to graduate school, not because of the "situation". And I know, deep down, that my presence in Israel would not be of any help. I'm not a soldier. I can't defend my country. But over here in Chicago, I am completely, 100% helpless to do anything except watch from afar.

Maybe this won't make sense to anyone else. It doesn't have to. I realize how bizarre this must sound...to wish I was back in a place where people are taking refuge in bomb shelters, where rockets are hitting cities never before hit, where every hour brings the toll of those wounded or killed even higher. Bizarre, but true.

I've been homesick for Israel every day since I left. Right now, the longing to be there almost makes me nauseous. My heart weeps for those wounded, for their families, the families of those who have been killed, the families of the soliders who have been kidnapped, for my entire country. And my fists curl up in helpless anger at those who have brought about this violence, and at the Powers That Be who have me sitting in an office in Chicago, so very far from where my heart is.