February BAM

Well, devillibrarian, I'm in the middle of 6 books at the moment, and haven’t finished one this month. And I’m a day late.  A couple sort of fit your challenge.  So I'm going to go out on a limb and use the one that I have about 15 pages left in (yes, I've said in a previous post that I finished it, I was optimistic that I’d be done it by the end of the day – I was wrong.  Life sucks sometimes.)

Course, it also doesn't quite fit the challenge, but in a way does.

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

Elizabeth Gilbert

Everyone told me I needed to read this book.  When I got to page 10 and Liz is bawling on the floor of the bathroom because she doesn't want to be married anymore, I realized that people saw me in this woman.  Forget the conversations with her god, her desire to find help in the unseen, people saw me as going through the same things.

And I saw myself in her.  I saw the control freak, the neurotic one, I saw the person who has disappeared herself into the people she's been with her entire life, never truly knowing herself.  And having to give up all that is comfortable to truly find out who she is.

I didn't travel around the world.  I didn't give up my comforts.  I have a roof over my head for which I pay rent, I have friends around me and people I know intimately.  I have a stable job and mostly enjoy what I do.  But what I did give up was the safety of having another person, no matter how much I didn't want to be with him, obligated to look out for me.  I gave up a good bit of financial stability.  I gave up what was expected of me.

And in doing that, I truly found myself.  I often say that I found myself again.  I must have known myself early on in my teenage years.  But that quickly was superceded by obligations to my family, friends, boyfriends, and anyone else I could lose myself in.  And then, when Mick and I stayed together so long, I truly had lost myself in him and trying to be what he expected me to be and what I thought I should be.  And was unhappy, much like Liz was.

In giving up that comfort, and setting on a path that’s not easy, she finds her peace and herself.  Her bliss takes her on a path through Italy – where she learns to love her physical desires, to India – where she learns to love her spiritual desires, to Indonesia – where she just learns to love.  It’s the journey of a lifetime, and the journey of life.  And, in that, she finds peace.

So, will I be able to find that peace?  In many ways I have.  I love the physical – sex, food, the pain and pleasure of exercise, - when I’m using my body (or, sometimes, abusing my body), I know I’m alive.  I love my mind – I’m writing, reading more, challenging myself with music, art, poetry, I know I’m engaged with myself.  And I am in the process of coming to terms with love.  

And that’s where the heart comes in.

So thanks to all, including hamikka, who told me to read Eat, Pray, Love.  Yes, I know why you saw me in it.  I know why I went from the library copy to purchasing my own to highlight and go back to from time to time.  There are lines and moments I will never forget.

And one of my favorites, which I was discussing last night with a new friend:

“People think that a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants.  But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who bring you to your own attention so you can change your life.  A true soul mate is probably the most important person you will ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake.  But to live with a soul mate forever?  Nah.  Too painful.  Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave.” (pg 149)

That’s heart.  When you can let go of the idea that your soul mate completes you and understand that you complete you, you have found your heart.