The Wildcard

My roommates never fail to remind me that I was their wildcard.

They lovingly tell me that they are at a loss for words when describing me to their old friends. When choosing roommates last February, the three of them took a chance on a little known girl from Atlanta. Roommate #1 was known seemingly worldwide for her vocals and legendary Camp Morasha service; Roommate #2 was known for her die hard Yachad devotion; Roommate #3 was known for her quirky personality and fine-tuned ukulele skills; and I, well I was the wildcard. This was because I hadn’t followed the same life paths as the others. For me, stepping into Tiferet was like entering a new planet. Words like “Camp Morasha”, “Central Avenue”, and “Hardtail skirts” seemed like a different language to me at first. I was used to “out of town” lingo and connecting to Five Towns girls was totally out of my comfort zone.

Before starting sem, I had proudly been a student at Atlanta’s only Modern Orthodox day school for twelve years. This constant had its pros and cons. Due to the limited schooling options in the area, my grade was very close. We did everything together-from sharing crayons in Kindergarten to ditching class Senior year. Since I knew I’d always have my crew, I rarely felt the need to meet new people. I stuck with the same kids each summer and hadn’t changed my speed dial since my flip phone days. Sheltered as I was, I could only see the benefits of my close knit clique. As a result, my acceptance into Tiferet last February quickly morphed from excitement into paralyzing anxiety. I suddenly realized that I had no idea how to make new friends.

For the longest time I was trapped in this state of fear. I would look back on previous summers and beat myself up for keeping to the same routine year after year. I felt as though I had spent my life digging a deeper and deeper hole out of which I could not climb. I was sure that I would get to seminary and totally forget how to form words. I spent hours lying in bed going over the countless ways I would mess up my first impressions and prepping myself for nine months of solitude. If I had any semblance of sociability before this realization, I had long destroyed it by now. I spent so much time mulling over my ineptitude that I full on convinced myself that making new friends was out of the question. So I picked myself up, grabbed a pack of cards for a year full of Solitaire, and boarded the plane to Israel.

I had always considered myself a fairly self aware individual. But my anxieties leading up to seminary couldn’t have been more off base. As I slowly got to know the girls I’d be spending my year with, I found that they couldn’t care less about what state I was from. Words that I had originally written off as distancing factors between me and my classmates soon faded into background noise. The physical things that I had stressed about for so long didn’t matter anymore because these girls were so much deeper than that. Sure, in my case, making new friends involved mastering a new set of vocabulary and being able to rattle off each of the Five Towns in ten seconds flat, but it was well worth the change. I’ve since learned not to count out the wildcard right away. Rather, we all must deal with the hand that we’re dealt and learn to play it wisely.