As I enter Sukkot, my last one in Florida as a resident, I am truly in a temporary dwelling. I leave Monday to embark on my trip to my forever home. When I look back not only at my years here, but at what brought me down here, I can see the plan in front of me. Even though while living through it, I really felt that there was no area that was working for me, it was to show me that these places and people that I have left and am leaving were always the plan. I just had to see it. I just had to live it to believe it, and to be able to really move forward.

Every Sukkot, we walk out of our solid houses and sit in a flimsy hut with a roof you can see the stars through, to remember that our ancestors spent forty years in the desert in temporary shelters, protected by nothing but Hashem. The walls were never what kept them safe.

I sit here, in a half-empty dwelling, figuring out how my friend is going to get out of Boston to be down here to help and drive up with me, and I can see how the prior me would have kept on accepting being treated poorly, used, and a shell of myself.

And so as the final days here come to a close, I have to keep reflecting and thinking….

For me to go through all of that, for years, to lose people in my life that I thought I could count on, what lies on the horizon for me?

It is a new year, a new home. I have gone through the worst of it. This is a time for me to honestly reinvent myself to be the person I am destined to be.

As I have a long drive, 20 hours, with two cats and a nor’easter going on in Boston this weekend, I have the time to reflect and decide. Who am I, who am I meant to be, what am I here to do, and what type of person do I, and Hashem, want me to be.

A new place, a new start. A new Yael.

So I want to ask you the same thing I am asking myself. As you sit in the sukkah this week, whether it’s your own or you’re mooching off your neighbor’s, think about what in your life is temporary that you have been treating like it’s permanent. What are you still putting up with just because you are used to it? The sukkah was never meant to be lived in forever, and neither is whatever that is for you. You don’t have to figure it all out this week. Just figure out what isn’t coming with you.

As I embark on this new journey towards my true self, I will share the wins and the not-so-good decisions along the way. One thing I know for sure: I have great people, a stellar sense of humor, and Hashem on my side.

Yael