Nina Simone and Muse

It's a new day, it's a new year, it's quite literally a new life for me.

In my last post, I spoke of my apprehension going into Rosh Hashanah, about signs from G-d, and about how hard I've been praying lately. I spoke about feeling guilty.

It's amazing what 48 hours of praying and eating and praying and walking and reading and praying some more will do. Also, it's amazing what some freaky coincidences will do.

Without going into too much detail, I've got to say that if I thought hives and guilt were Divine messages, my mind is blown by the ones I've gotten over Erev-actual Rosh Hashanah. Again, I feel I should stress that I'm not at all sure what my thoughts on individual Divine messages are, whether or not I believe in them, or even if I do, whether I'm worthy to receive one, but let's just say it's been a weird three days.

It's been a situation of I forgot to turn off my phone five minutes ago, let me do it now, and then it ringing with a very strange and unexpected message on the other end. Or one of if something doesn't happen right now to interrupt me, I'm going to walk right up to this place and - then a big branch falls on my head. There are others, but they verge on the too personal and freaky to actually write about. I'm not sure what they mean, if they mean anything at all, but most of them seem to be pointing toward something positive, or the very least, hopeful. And if I can take the negative, accusatory signs, then I can definitely accept the hopeful ones too.

Anyway, this morning, I woke up not feeling that great. It was back to the grind, more school, more work, not another day to meditate on life until Yom Kippur next week. No freaky coincidences were waiting for me today. I wondered whether all my praying had, maybe, not changed anything? But as I got up and got myself ready for the day, I started slowly feeling like a certain weight had been lifted off me. Not all the weight, not nearly so, but something was definitely gone that had been weighing unpleasantly before. Suddenly, I could hear a voice telling me, you're being too hard on yourself. You've definitely got what to work on, but you're doing all you can with the hand you've been dealt right now. So just keep working on it. And feel a little good.

The truth is, I do feel better. Maybe not shout-it-from-the-rooftops good, but there's some definite improvement. And the improvement was shot home for me when I went on Facebook and saw that a friend had posted a video of that girl from X-Factor auditioning with one of my two favorite songs, the happy one, Nina Simone's Feeling Good. I listened to it on repeat, loving every verse and wondering how I went over a month without listening to this wonderful tune.

Feel good, I told myself. If Nina Simone could feel that good, so can you.

But then I thought, nah, most of the weight's still there. Rosh Hashanah's past, but Yom Kippur's still to come. You've still got a lot of things to work on. So I do feel better, but it's an apprehensive positivity, with a dash of blues and maybe even a pinch of rage thrown in. So it's not like Nina Simone's original, but more like the Muse cover of the song. Because I feel good and free in a way, but I wouldn't mind punching something while I'm humming along. Angry/scared/happy? Does that even make sense?

So I've got a new wish for the new year. May I, and all others who feel this way, go from Muse Feeling Good to a genuine Nina Simone Feeling Good before the year is out, and be able to truly enjoy it when they do.