Dear Andrew,
I just had my birthday last week and now I’m freaking out. I feel like I’m behind on life!
Is this how “growing up” happens these days? What do you think?

The blasts of the shofar evoke feelings and emotions that otherwise would not have the time nor the space to come out. As I stand in silence, and hear the shrill blast, I am reminded of what is coming. Not of the large meal and countless hours in synagogue, but I am reminded of the opportunity to start anew.

Few subjects in a woman’s life are discussed in such dichotomous terms other than her period. It’s discussed glowingly: it’s the start of her womanhood, a connection to the tides and moon, and something that gives her the ability to create a life. It’s also discussed with frustration and embarrassment: first periods, accidents, and the euphemisms used just to avoid saying “period”: Aunt Flow, my monthly friend, on the rag, shark week.

Every year is a cycle of beginnings and ending, and every year I take stock of what has changed. It seems coincidental that the New Year comes as the seasons change, from summer to fall here in the northern hemisphere, and from winter to spring in the southern hemisphere. The sun sets a little bit earlier, and still-warm days have a feeling of change.

I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer during the summer between my junior and senior years of college. I didn’t even know what my thyroid did when I was diagnosed, and had no idea what treatment I was going to have to endure before I got better.

One minute you’re fine, the next you’re crying over something insignificant, or picking a fight. Later, your actions hardly seem “like “you.” Who hasn’t had a mood swing? But how much of that is normal “hormones ” or “PMS?”? What is PMS and how is it different from PMDD? Are these things even real? If they are do we have to suffer through them? Are they just side effects of “being a woman” or “being on the pill?”? What’s normal, and when do you say, “enough” and seek professional help?

A few days after my thirtieth birthday, I woke up with intense back pain. Had I gone rock climbing and suffered a great fall? Spent the night at a dance marathon? No. All I did was turn 30, and my back decided to send me a painful warning signal.

Prior to that moment of sheer happiness, I thought it came in a bottle of anti-depressants, and therapy. From the age of twelve to about 25, happiness happened for me in an hour here, a day there, maybe a week or two if I was lucky.

When my father handed me the ripped-up, yellowed copy that he’d picked up for me at a half-price sale at a used-bookstore, my first reaction was, “Isn’t this a movie with Roseanne?”

It’s a good thing that Jews are the people of the book, because when I converted I fit right in.