The long goodbye...

I didn’t realize that the second time would be harder than the first. Yet I shouldn’t have been surprised; Right from the times I refused to come to the door to wave off close family friends when I was little, I have always had issues with saying goodbye.

That’s something that people don’t necessarily tell you about Aliya. That however exciting it is to start a new life, to go to a new place, to meet new people and to do new things, it also means you have to leave behind others.

So as I stood in the refurbished Bull and Bush for my second ‘leaving drinks,’ already feeling a bit like a visitor, the thought of when I’ll next see many of my friends again did flash through my mind.

And however much I like to pretend that Aliya is not a big step, not a million miles away from England, that I’ll stay the same and see people the whole time, the truth is that I made a decision to change the direction of my life; And I stand by that decision 1000%. Yet at some stage, hopefully a long time from now but at some stage nevertheless, those that didn’t make a similar choice will become a less central aspect in my life. And no matter how happy I am in my new life that fact is bittersweet - because you can’t replace someone you have known since nursery who remembers you in a red apron and curls, or someone you laughed with at camp as a 12 year old; or the people you celebrated GCSE results with in Netanya, the mischief in Physics lessons, the nights out in Leeds, the football matches on the Heath… You can’t necessarily recreate those one liners, the jokes, the memories, the places…

So I will be at their weddings, and I hope they’ll be at mine. But in some ways, I can’t help thinking that the trip to England was the beginning of the end of my connection there.

Because the beginning of a new life in some ways inevitably means the ending of an old one.