סגירה Closing

The more of my friends who leave, the more it's finally sinking in that I'm leaving.

Yesterday morning, I closed my bank account. As corny as it sounds, it made me surprisingly sad. I remember how opening a bank account at the beginning of the year was so exciting, and felt like a real, concrete step towards living here. Closing it made it really feel like the end.

It's especially hard to leave Israel, a place that so many people believe is the Jewish homeland. In the same way that at the beginning of the year, my bank teller (a complete stranger) wanted to make sure I was settling in ok and that my apartment-mates were nice and that I had where to go for Shabbat meals, complete strangers are genuinely sad to hear that I'm leaving. Every time I mention to an Israeli that I'm going back to the States, I have to justify why I'm leaving and why I don't want to make aliyah (become an Israeli citizen).

All three bank tellers I talked to yesterday morning said it's חבל (a waste/shame) that I'm leaving and asked if I'm coming back.

And "אם אשכחך" is still my brain's background music, for the past week and a half. Only two more days.