Yom Kippur: The After

Fasting is over. Had a lovely breaking of fast (which is indeed where the word “breakfast” comes from) with Derek and Heather. Now and serene, relaxed and very, very happy, the fortunate result of a day spent soul searching.

The lesson of this Yom Kippur: Each year, I write a letter to someone I feel I need to make amends to. This year, for the first time, I wrote this letter to myself. I feel I’m pretty nasty to me a lot of time, quietly yelling at myself for being a less than productive writer, a half-assed friend/son/brother, and an out-to-lunch boyfriend. I rarely cut myself a break and spent most of my waking hours juiced on some unholy concoction of work adrenalin, fear and self-loathing. This is not the recipe for a balanced, happy life.

What, brothers and sisters, is the point of exercising, eating well, not smoking or drinking in hopes of living a long time if you can’t appreciate it, if you spend most of those overtime years berating yourself for not spending them better?

So I’m going to try to do it a little differently. I’m going to try and remember each day to thank God that I have a pretty good life, dang nab it. And that I earned it from hard work, good karma and being a decent human being, not through trickery, deceit or blind luck. I’m entitled to a little happiness with out my daily routine of convincing myself otherwise. So that’s the new motto. Relish in the joy. Because there’s lots of it around, if I let myself off the hook long enough to accept.

• Category: Faith and Such