Yarden Benzaken
Many people go through struggles in there life some more serious than others, but one of the hardest times I had to go through in my life is when my parents decided to pick up and move to Israel. I was in 7th grade, which means I was about 13/14 years old, which to me is the hardest point in a girl’s life, being a teenager and all, where she is forced to leave her friends. My parents sat my siblings and I down when they broke out with this new news. It was clear that we were all devastated. I cried for day’s even weeks but after a while I realized that it wasn’t going to do anything. My parents had made up their mind and made a decision, there was no trying to save it. When we all got to Israel none of us arrived with an open mind. Especially myself. I would ditch school halfway through the day and sometimes just wouldn’t show up at all. My teachers were concerned at my acting out and it was extremely difficult to make friends due to the language difference. I spent a lot of time alone and each day I grew more resentful towards my parents. Bottom line, life was not easy. However after a few months I figured since this is my life now I better give it a shot. Slowly but surely I picked up on the Israeli language and before I knew it I found my own group of friends. It took time but I finally felt happy again. And by the look of my families faces I saw that as time went on we were all settling in and we were all feeling like we belonged. All of us that is, except for my mom. It seemed like the more I enjoyed Israel the less she did. She tried to cover up her emotions up with a smile but I saw right through it. I knew something was wrong and it took about 5 months for my parents to sit us down once again to tell us that they have made a decision to move our family. They said because our family wasn’t adjusting here in Israel, they want to move us back to long island NY. If you asked me four months before I would have been ecstatic. But this just wasn’t fair. Finally when I begin to feel comfortable, they want to tear me a way and make me start this whole process over again. But after speaking to my mom and hearing how she felt having my father commute from NY every 2 weeks because he still kept his job there, I understood that it was too hard for her to feel like a single mom raising 4 kids and fulfilling all the responsibilities of our household. So long story short my family moved back to ny, and I had to go through the hard struggles of adjustment all over again. It was a difficult stage in my life but I definitely gained something from it. I believe I am more confident and independent from going through this experience.
