4/25/25 finished on 7/30/25
I’m living in a weird space right now.
I’m not Christian anymore. I don’t think that label has fit for a long time. But I’m not Jewish either – not yet. (Just kinda Jew-ish lol.)
I’m stuck in this weird in-between land. It’s a little lonely, sometimes but I surprisingly made friends with someone else who converted several years ago. She is also a coworker, and she is very nice. She has already helped me out quite a bit, and changed my mind on some things that I didn’t think I would ever really change my mind about. We also had a Seder together this year on Pesach.
It was really nice. We ended up using 3 different Haggadahs, including ‘The (unofficial) Harry Potter Haggadah’, the Chabad Haggadah, and an ArtScroll Haggadah. It was my first Seder, and was just the two of us. It was nice. We were able to have some great discussions without pressure to say a certain thing or filter ourselves.
But again, not technically Jewish. Celebrated the holiday, said the prayers, participated the best I could, but does it really count?
I’d like to think it does, but someone else might think not.
(finished the rest of the below post in July)
It’s an interesting place to be, this grey-space. There’s so much I have left to learn, so much to experience, and it’s difficult in ways, because so much of it is community-driven. Community is important.
Community requires socialization. And I suck at socialization. The autism causes me difficulties there, that’s for sure.
I’d like to keep building the community around myself, I just don’t know how or am uncomfortable doing so. Socializing was never my strong suit, see my entire life.
But the little pieces of community I have found so far though, have been amazing. There’s the (former, now) coworker I mentioned before and there’s my good friend from college who are supportive (and also Jewish). And my family supports me, and so do my (admittedly few) friends.
It’s just difficult-ish when everyone else has family they can go celebrate with, and I’m over here in a proverbial corner all by myself, like that meme with the dog and the room on fire saying, “This is fine”.
Like it is fine, in a way. I have to start somewhere, but the starting somewhere by yourself is lonely. It’s too easy to stay in isolation, and Judaism was not meant to be practiced like that.
I want to be part of the community. I want to make friends and have those connections, but the thought of putting myself out there is scary and anxiety-inducing. I’m not good in those kinds of situations, especially when it’ll require small-talk and questions that’ll probably be aimed at my conversion experiences so far.
So I’ll keep living in this liminal space.
I’ll keep trying to put myself out there, slowly, very slowly.
I’ll keep working on building my davening habits, and remembering to light the Shabbat candles each week.
I’ll keep learning what I can about Judaism.
I’m not going back, that’s for certain. I’m going to keep trudging through this liminal space until I reach the other side, and complete my conversion. I want this more than I can really say, or well, type.
Hashem is calling me to Him, towards my spiritual home. And I’m not going to ignore it or avoid it anymore.
Converting Kassie 