Here’s to small steps, meaningful choices, and finding my way back — as a Reform Jew, as a parent, and as someone who still loves this tradition deeply.

I don’t need to be perfect. I don’t need to be someone else’s idea of “observant.” I just want to salvage what I’ve lost, strengthen what I still have, and rebuild my Jewish life with the same sincerity that brought me to the mikveh a decade ago.

To show up for the parts of Jewish life that nourish me. To be a little more intentional, a little more present, a little more observant in a way that fits who I am now, not who I was ten years ago.

Lately, though, I’ve been feeling that pull again — the one that first led me to Judaism in the first place. The desire to reconnect with the rhythms that made my life feel rooted.

And so the level of observance I worked so hard to build slipped in quiet, gradual ways. Not out of disinterest. Not out of regret. Just out of life being life.

Then life happened. Parenthood happened. Distance from the synagogue happened. Finding the energy for the things that once came naturally… didn’t always happen.

Like so many converts, I imagined an upward curve of learning and observance — more rituals, more study, more community as the years went on. And for a while, that’s exactly how it felt.