a potential positive hanukkah offering from my own experience, this year: a friend invited me to light candles with them, tonight. i remember speaking with you a bit about having complicated feelings about my jewish heritage - that it's a thing i never grew up practicing, because of my own father's distance from it, and that side of the family intentionally distancing themselves from him - and that the only jewish thing about me feels like my crohn's, which is historically ashkenazi. but i told a friend about that tonight, who was over for dinner. they live nearby and invited me over afterwards, and they let me light candles with them. because i had missed the first night of hanukkah, they sang an extra verse for me. and we chatted until the flames burned out, while also talking about potentially doing shabbat together in the future.

i feel like my jewish ancestry is something i've missed out on - culturally more than religiously, because i know i'm not a person who could believe in that sort of thing. so it's been nice to experience it through friends, now that i'm older.

i'm so glad that you have devon, for so many reasons. while i know that very little can go wrong when tomorrow is the last day of undergrad for him, i still hope everything goes well!