I am finally reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I held off on this because a) it was such a damn phenomenon that I didn't feel like giving into the hype (I'm like this with a few things, and when I finally give in I usually kick myself, like in the case of my delayed discovering of The Office) and b) I felt like the whole post-divorce-life-overhaul thing wouldn't really be relatable for me. I was so, so wrong. Gilbert is a great writer. So good in fact (and herein lies her immense success, I believe) that I almost feel like I could have written this book, not in a self-flattering way but in a "damn this woman is so perfectly and eloquently describing almost identical thoughts to my own and I can't deal." She is so smart, so funny and so relatable and it all seems so...effortless. Like she just sat down and wrote this whole thing in one sitting, stream-of-consciousness, and it just came out perfect. Far from being the overwrought, overemotional, over-estrogenized tale that I expected it to be, it is honest and intentional, like she's confessing all and yet somehow being very selective of her words at the same time. It is remarkable and I am very glad to be reading this book at this time in my life.
I relate to Elizabeth Gilbert as a person; like her, I am also tall and blonde (and have also felt like an alien because of it at times, as she describes in one section of the book), also haven't been single essentially ever in my life, and also am searching for the way to balance to search for pleasure and the search for spirituality in life. I also, if you know me, derive more pleasure from food than from almost anything else, and I loved this passage : "For the longest time I couldn't even touch the food because it was such a masterpiece of lunch, a true expression of the art of making something out of nothing...happiness inhabited my every molecule" (64). I enjoy Gilbert's reverence for the simply beauty of life, and I am thankful for her honest account of her struggles after all of her personal turmoils...it is not so much entertainment for me so far as education. I really need this book right now.
As far as having never been single...yeah. I've really never been single. Had my first "official" boyfriend in 5th grade, but can remember being in love with somebody from preschool on. Preschool. And although I think I have been better than Gilbert at not completely losing myself in my relationships (as Gilbert says, "I disappear into the person I love" [65]), what the heck?? As Gilbert puts it, "That's almost two solid decades I have been entwined in some kind of drama with some kind of guy. Each overlapping the next, with never so much as a week's breather in between. And I can't hep but to think that's been something of a liability on my path to maturity" (65). I mean, as healthy as my relationships have been, how healthy can it be to be in a relationship for your whole adolescence and young adulthood? And now that I've met The One, I will potentially be part of a couple for the rest of my life. While that thought delights me, as I know I have been built to love and be loved, it is a little unsettling. As I read Elizabeth Gilbert's chronicle of her experiencing of romantic loneliness for the first time in her life, I'm struck by how important that experience probably is, and it's one I've never had. While it may be important, however, is it worth risking the relationship with The One so I can go hang out with that dude called Loneliness for awhile? Probably not. But maybe it does mean I'm not ready to get married. But then again, is anyone ever really "ready" to join their life with someone else's? I don't know. Gotta finish this book so I can get to Committed. Oh Gilbert, you are rocking my world.
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