Questions of religion

I've been catching up on Tamara Eden's blog and came across this comment discussion in an April post.
Please read it.
Part of Tamara's post:
How is it that a person like me can be raised in a home where I felt so Jewish, and yet, knew almost nothing about Judaism?

How is it that a person like me can go to six years of Hebrew school and not know which prayers to say when?

How is it that a person like me, who loved Hebrew school, was always
beyond proud to be Jewish, never learned the importance of prayer until
I was an adult?

How is it that a person like me, even though nobody told me, knew that
certain things should and shouldn't be?

What follows her post is a conversation with tikkunger a non-Jew undergoing a conversion. The conversation is a very intelligent one about reform/Orthodox/Chabbad Judaism.
As I've just joined a Reform synagogue, it is a topic dear to my heart. I've commented on reform Judaism before and it is not my goal to repeat those comments here (although I did have to re-read my post and see what I said. Fortunately, I still agree with most of it).

The post did get me to think about these questions that Tamara posted. They are good ones, and ones I can't answer.
I suppose part of the problem is very few people can answer them. Tamara relates a lot of this knowledge gap to her Reform upbringing. I can sympathize with that view: my upbringing was similar. Growing up Reform, I got a very good grounding in history and ethics, and I knew the Reform service structure quite well, but I was in for a shock when I spent a year at an orthodox synagogue. Most of the prayers we learned were just the first few lines of the full prayers. Many prayers were skipped altogether, and others just weren't repeated quite the same number of times.
With the Orthodox community, I also celebrated holidays I had never celebrated before. It wasn't entirely because my synagogue didn't have a service for the given holiday, it was just that it wasn't part of my family to observe it. I stayed up late for Shavuout (the commemoration of Israelites receiving the Torah at Sinai) and ate cheese cake. The Seder lasted until 1 am. I had long Shabbat meals and ate cholent (a slow-cooked bean/meat/veggie concoction).
These moments were fabulous and deeply meaningful. Just because I didn't do them as a Reform growing up, however, doesn't mean I can't do them as an adult Reform Jew. Part of what being a Reform Jew is is learning what is meaningful to you and important to the tradition and adopting it into your life. Do I wish I learned more? Of course, but I don't plan on stopping my learning anytime soon.
I obviously don't know how I'd be different if I had a different upbringing. But although my background didn't teach me all I needed to know (whose does), it taught me to seek and value learning. And for that, I'm grateful.