times past

I went through lots of "phases" as a child. Certainly, I had some indulgences and adventures. By the time I graduated high school, I had gone through a dance performance program, a vocal performance program, went as a youth ambassador to Japan and the Republic of Korea, worked in the political arena, written as a journalist intern at a newspaper, been a DJ with my own special show, and gone to a gifted and talented youth program in astronomy and space travel. My life since then has hardly been as interesting and so I wonder sometimes at my youth and that driven person I was. If I didn't have all the pictures, documents, and memories, I'm not sure I would be able to vouch that I'm the same person who did all that.

I know all the things that have shaped me and changed me since then -some better than others, of course. I know today I could hardly be different from what I am now, not so confident, not so sure-footed, not so motivated, etc. I wonder if everyone's life is so paved with regrets and nostalgia at what a person once was and what they could have been...?

On the other hand, looking back at all I accomplished then, I see, too, again what other people saw when they looked at me. Nostalgia.

Beyond that, I wonder if -since I condemned my kids to a life where they can never have the opportunities I had...- whether that education is really so important after all, since I've forgotten so much of that information anyway, but also I wonder if I didn't just exhibit the worst sense of nurturing/parenting by stripping the right from my kids to have all the opportunities that life can offer unbound by kashrut, unbound by duty to H", and unbound by societal and ritualistic restrictions.

I know what I did was right; I just question my general sanity in having done that.