Don't worry--there's fun stuff embedded here too!  If you don't want to read the whole thing, I won't be offended.  But you can still find the links :)  They are all to things I love/recommend/appreciate/miss/am grateful for.

So here's what:

This year, as February approached, I was chill.  I looked around at my blessed life, and I was pretty sure this month would go by with much remembrance, but not much new loss.  I kind of thought I had this February thing beat.  After all, outside, where I live in California, it doesn't even look like February.  It looks like eternal May.  Roses are blooming all over town.  Cherry blossoms.  And just a few weeks ago, fall leaves were still on the ground.  In a region that skips winter, I figured I'd skip February.

But I actually began February in New York City, when I returned there for an alumni reunion of my yeshiva.  I arrived at JFK at 6:30am on Feb 1, felt the frigid air of NYC coming through the jetway, and practically cried with joy as I bought a MetroCard.  I hadn't been in NYC since I drove away from the city in August, in tears--listening to this song, duh, with this image in my rearview.  It was cold, and I was immediately more annoyed about trivial things than I normally am, and I was inappropriately dressed, figuring that since I live in California now, a fleece is really all you ever need.  I ate a bagel the size of my face within 3 hours of landing.

Everything looked like time had passed, but nothing was really forgotten.  Some storefronts looked different, some restaurants promising they were coming soon when I left were now up and running.  My old apartment, where my ex-boyfriend now lives, was still painted a calming baby blue, and the baker's rack in the corner was still full to the brim with kitchen appliances.  But small things were different: the bathmat, the painting on the wall, the black couch which had replaced my roommates' beloved brown leather, the books on the shelves were someone else's.  He was proud to show me what he had done with the place, especially his room, which was spotless (because he woke up at 5am to clean it for my arrival).   I bit my lip; I nodded.

I still thought I was totally going to beat the whole damned month.  Look!  Here I was!  Back where it all happened in every possible way--and I was grateful!  So put that in your pipe and smoke it, February!  Here I was in my beloved city, which I was loathe to leave!  I can stand in this beloved apartment with a past beloved and a beloved past and I can totally handle this!  I skipped off happily to the alumni gathering of my yeshiva.  I reunited with my beloved former roommate, and my beloved Berkeley neighbor who is in Israel all spring, and when I arrived at the conference there were all of my beloved teachers and rabbis, and then we were praying to my Beloved G-d, and...do you get how much love I was feeling on February 1st?

And.

It all started to hurt so, so much.  It still really does.

Sometimes I wonder if I spent February 1st loving everything I love, and every day after that just missing it.  Just the missing part of love.  The part that, when you feel it all on its own, makes it all just very confusing.

Purim barreled in and made a lot of joyful demands on me.  I received a beautiful gift basket today from my synagogue and felt the power of belonging here.  I danced a lot.

I think about Februaries past, how traumatic they were, how keeping the community to organized support like this blog has become would have been very difficult for many of us, because our needs were too varied and confusing and spontaneous, and all we could do was just hold each other all the time.

Which is really how it feels whenever I read a new post on this blog, which with deep gratitude, I do every day.  Because it's February.

Even for me.

So thank you.

Selah.