I’m celebrating Hanukkah myself this year

This might sound dumb, apologies, but I’m not very good at talking about stuff like this.

I’ve always LOVED celebrating Jewish holidays with my family so much as a kid, My family is super tiny and I’ve never really had a particular culture or place to be from otherwise, I’m kind of just from nowhere. I loved reading the Hebrew prayers and preparing for Rosh Hashanah and Passover and cooking and being part of something, just everything. I remember being so proud of being Jewish when I was little, and then as I got older my family slowly started hiding everything bit by bit. I think the right term would probably be something like generational trauma, my family came here as refugees in WW2, and before that as refugees from pogroms, I don’t blame them for hiding.

It feels like everyone is supposed to keep this secret, like I’ve been trying to learn Hebrew myself and I just have this deeply engrained embarrassment of even trying. Plus it’s my dad that’s the Jewish parent so I don’t even technically count and I can’t help but feeling like if I did know my older family they’d be ashamed of me because of that.

This year for the first time I’m buying a little menorah and I’m going to do everything as right as I can. I’m clearing a little space in my bedroom right in front of my window where the candles can burn and I’m going to cook latkes and try not to make myself cry too much haha. I probably don’t even belong here but I don’t want to be completely by myself this year, happy Hanukkah!