I settle my girls with pekelach and then teeter on my tiptoes to peer over the blow-dried heads. Achas sha’alti me’eis Hashem…. I want to tap, to clap, to cry, but it’s all I can do just to keep from falling over.

I want those girls to move. I want the window. I want my reward. Don’t you know what I’ve done? I want to say.

My menaheles in seminary taught us never to use the word sacrifice. “You don’t sacrifice for privileges and wealth. No one would say, ‘I had to sacrifice two thousand dollars for this leather couch.’ You wanted the couch, so you paid two thousand dollars. You want a life of Torah, you give and then you get.”

But sweet sem girl, do you know what I gave? Forget forgoing manis and pedis and the latest sheitels and shoes. Think about forgoing help in the mornings, late at night. Think of bundling babies in and out, serving and cooking and shopping with everyone tied to my waist to keep from disturbing seder. Think about juggling multiple jobs, coming home exhausted from the first only to start the next. Think of forgoing clothing sales and vacations.

Think of looking down the road at your future and seeing the ol of parnassah planted permanently on your shoulders — but then remembering it’s the only future you want to see.

And think of the rest, the divrei Torah at every meal, the singing and laughter, the chavrusas and hungry bochurim, the rebbeim and rabbanim, the dancing, the happiness and privilege that fills every day, painted with this brush we’ve chosen to use. Think of the joy and satisfaction that come from the knowledge that you’re living a life aligned with your ideals; think of the sweetness that only a life centered around Torah can bring.

You, sweet, fresh-faced sem girl, you want the tapestry I’ve just woven. Maybe you’ve always wanted it, maybe you’d never realized before that you’ve wanted it. But you want it. Fiercely.

I do, too. But I get the back view, too. Underneath, the threads are all knotted and tangled and sometimes, they’re in shades of gray. I can’t get my needle loose, and I don’t know where I’m going or how I’ll get there. Still I push on. Even when the sun is gone and the dreams seem dead and I don’t remember why I chose this life in the first place, I keep going. We keep going.

And from somewhere, I realize that we’re on a cycle that travels from Simchas Torah to Simchas Torah. Because that’s when the vault is opened for all to see.

Achas Sha’alti. One thing I ask of You, G-d. Let me sit in the house of Torah. Let this little home I’m building be overflowing with Your words. Let them ring out in the morning, singsong softly in the night.

In between there will be kvetching and snapped words and tired grumpiness and ringing laughter and hyperactive little people. But every day let my house be Your House.

Please don’t send me out.

Sweet sem girl, may you be zocheh to follow your dreams — even once you realize that those dreams are harder won than you thought. One day, it’ll be your rewards dancing below the window.

But today can you please move over? Let’s share the view.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 963)