Eat, Pray, Love

I've been thinking a lot as I read "Eat Love Pray." The first thing I think is: Elizabeth Gilbert is a genius! She is absolutely brilliant! I have been writing nearly all my life and still don't have the means to write a book like this even though I see so much of myself in her character. I have taken notes as I go along, especially in the chapters where I find myself saying, "I just told that to myself the other day," or as she quotes, "I've been there before." One of my favorite blocks from her comes from Book Two: India. It reads:

"Nobody ever died from splitting up. It's the emotional recoil that kills you, the shock of stepping off the track of a conventional lifestyle and losing all the embracing comforts that keep so many people on that track forever. To create a family with a spouse is one of the most fundamental ways a person can find continuity and meaning in American society. I rediscover this truth every time I ... see how everyone is held so reassuringly in their positions over the years. First you are a child, then you are a teenager, then you are a young married person, then you are a parent, then you are retired, then you are a grandparents-- at every stage you know who you are, you know what your duty is and you know where to sit at the family reunion. Who are you? How many people have I heard claim their children as the greatest accomplishment and comfort of their lives? It's the thing they can always lean on during a metaphysical crisis, or a moment of doubt about their relevancy-- If I have done nothing else in this life, then at least I have raised my children well.

"But what if, either by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity? What if you step out? Where do you sit at the reunion? How do you mark time's passage without the fear that you've just frittered away your time on Earth without being relevant? You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being. I love children, but what if I don't have any? What kind of person does that make me?"

Now that is something that I find myself thinking about quite often, more often than I should. It all goes back to me having this fear of what I'm feeling. That fear is the same fear that I wrote about only yesterday; the fear that keeps me from doing what I would consider a possible "vocation." And as I wrote yesterday as well, my biggest fear is being unsuccessful. But I suppose I've rendered myself "unsuccessful" by my own standards and not God's standards. When I ask those "What if" questions all the time I just find reason to consume my mind and heart with non-Godly-isms. That is definitely not something I want to keep doing. Maybe I, like Elizabeth, shall take a year off and do something; leave here; go anywhere but this country. Not that there is anything wrong with this country, but haven't I found such a monotonous peace that life seems almost (I hate to say it) ... boring? There is that possibility. Maybe I need to get away in order to gain new life experiences. I need to lose more to see what I have. I need to find a way to find myself through the Lord again. I used to know, and then I somehow fell directly off the cliff into a foreign land. I've been straining my neck to see where I am. I have been trying to find my way home. But like I said, I need God's help. Maybe this book that I randomly decided to pick up is just a sign from the Lord. Maybe it's just what I needed. And knowing God, He is always right and good.