From Home... to Home

Somewhere along the Atlantic, I decided things would be okay. 

Today I left my home of Miami Beach, Florida, where I have been staying at my father’s house, the house I grew up in, since I left Boston two and a half weeks ago. I ended up back home because this past summer of 2011, I told myself that by my next birthday, I would either have plans to leave Boston, or be out of there. On January 9^th 2012, the day I turned 26, I hopped a bus to NY to visit my sister for a few days before finally returning to Miami Beach.

It’s not that Boston hasn’t been a great place to live, but I feel like I got what I wanted out of the city. I originally left Miami in the fall of 2004 to attend Tufts for my undergraduate degrees in Psychology and Community Health. I loved Tufts. 

I loved Tufts so much, that I immediately went to graduate school at Tufts after college, for my master’s degree in Nutrition. By that time, I was beginning to notice that many of my college peers had left Boston/Cambridge. 

I felt like everyone was moving on with their lives and careers, except for me. I stayed in Boston after grad school, unlike most of my classmates, for a job in a hospital as a Nutritionist. The work was fine; it was my first full-time job. However, the nagging urge to leave Boston only grew during my time as a Nutritionist. 

I stayed in Boston for a year and a half after grad school, bringing my total amount of time there to 7.5 years. Most Jumbos left after graduation, few were left who didn’t have family in the Boston area. I don’t particularly hate Boston, but I needed to make a change in my life—I needed an adventure. And leaving Boston was the first step.

I actually wish I didn’t have this adventure bug in me. I saw many of my friends getting married, starting out their own businesses, beginning long-term careers, and I wondered why this comfort wasn’t good enough for me. Adventures are great, but they require life-changes and can be emotionally and physically difficult to complete. 

I decided that if I were going to go on an adventure, there was only one place to go: Israel. I’ve been wanting to spend time in Israel for years. I’ve vacationed there, even joined the military there between my junior and senior years in a program called Marva, for non-Israelis to serve time in the IDF. And I’ve been wanting to return ever since. 

So I spent several months looking up opportunities for myself in Israel. My job was going to end in April, and I had been looking for positions for almost a year, with the same response from every hiring manager: I need more experience. 

Career Israel is an internship program for young adults to gain work experience in Israel. This seemed like the perfect opportunity for me; not only will I be in Israel, but I will be developing my resume with valuable work experience. I signed up for two very exciting internships, signed over my lease to a new tenant, and moved my belongings to Miami Beach. 

This adventure has been a work in progress for years. And now that I am flying over the Atlantic, I only hope that I made the right choice…