looking back on London

A month ago i got on a plane and flew to London... not so out of the ordinary- i'm sure thousands of people do that every day... except i went to spend a week with friends who i met online... i'm sure that these days thats not even that uncommon... but I'm also frum... and within the frum world people dont just meet others online (hell in some communities they cant even go online) and then fly across the atlantic to spend a week with them...

and yeah lots of people were worried about me and lots of people thought i was crazy... some tried to seem more nonchhalant about it- they said things like "oh wow you're going on a real adventure" as if that made it less obvious that they thought what i was doing was crazy...

but to me it was so normal... i have these amazing friends... these friends who i can talk to and who are there for me... who give me advice and pray with me... who comfort me when i'm upset and jump up and down and squee with me when i'm excited... and these are the friends who i went to visit... i wasnt going to stay with strangers... i was staying with friends who made sure along the way that i always had kosher food to eat- even though for most of them i was the first frum person they had ever met... i was staying with friends who know me inside and out... who have learned about Judaism b/c it's imp to me...

i got to spend a week having fun... and not once did they tell me they thought i was in a cult or that i was crazy b/c i couldnt eat what they eat and didnt dress how they dressed and they dont think im crazy for not cursing or b/c i couldnt go to see the show with all of them saturday night... they dont think i'm crazy... and then i come home... and pple have multiple times refered to the fact that the IC sounds like a cult... people have made comments about the fact that i spent a week with non Jews in a foreign country...

why do i feel sometimes that i fit more in with the philes than with my own people?

i miss them... i miss being able to quote xf and having others get it and having a week where i could talk and quote and mention and no one would give me that face- that "omg are u gonna talk about xf again" face... but mostly i miss them b/c theyre amazing friends... theyre fun and caring and accepting and non judgemental... we get each other...

in my world i dont feel like most pple get me... but then how can someone get me?? but why is what i believe so contradictory? Since when is being an idealist and a frum Jew mutually exclusive? When did Hashem say that being a phile is assur?? He didn't...

being frum isnt easy... it's advanced citizenship... you've got to want it bad, because it's going to put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil who is standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the 'land of the free'? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the 'land of the free.'" (I love Sorkin)

being frum isn't easy... it's complex... it's taking morals and values you've held ddear you're whole life and throwing them out b/c they contradict the Torah... b/c they arent emes... it's standing up and going against what you might have spent your life fighting for... it's feeling one thing and intellectually knowing another... it's hard... you have to fight for it... but thats what you get paid for...