Eat, Pray, Love

So I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love right now. I had purchased this book for Emily the Christmas before she passed away. She and I often bought each other books, read them, and then exchanged them so we could discuss them together. She loved this book. She said she felt like she could identify with some of the thoughts, struggles, revelations, and experiences that Gilbert describes throughout the memoir. So when I was never able to discuss the book with Emily, I thought I would never get around to it. Then the movie came out and reminded me that I should read the book. I refused to see the movie until I had read it first. But when I was bored on Saturday and found myself staring at the Red Box screen, I decided I would watch it. I had heard that people weren't thrilled by the movie, so I had low expectations. I'm not sure if it's the emotional connection with this story that made me love it or if I just liked it for itself, but I found myself crying several times during the movie and at one point had to pause it to take a breather. The story was moving and the insight that the narrator of the movie inspired me to think about some things in my life that I'd been stuffing into the corners like dirty laundry.

Needless to say, I went and bought the book the next day and have had several opportunities to sit and read it. It's easy to read so I could blow through it, but for some reason I feel like I need to think about her story and not just treat it as if I'm reading it for entertainment value alone.

There have been several moments in the book that have caused me to stop and reread them to make sure I'm grasping the totality of her statements. Here's a quotation from the book that I underlined:

"When I get lonely these days, I think: So be lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings."

It is too easy to do just that in relationships. I think I need to be really content with being single for a while to ensure that when I am in another relationship that I am in it for the right reasons.

I'm sure there will be more to come on this book. I'm not sure anyone even reads this. I guess I write about things because I need to put them somewhere. And sometimes my journal doesn't seem like the right place.