If The Journey Starts with Eating...I'm IN.

Eat Pray Love was released last week I’m hoping it lives up the book because I’m super excited to see this movie.  I read Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir a while ago and it really resonated with me; a woman who abandoned an unsatisfying marriage to live life on her own terms?  Yes, please.  (This book surfaced in my life shortly after I made the decision to leave my own crappy nuptials.)

          Now, I wasn’t able to abandon everything and travel around the world like Elizabeth Gilbert but I did make the decision to take control and live alone in a city where the only people I knew were force to spend the hours of 9-5 with me (I had just started and only knew a couple people better than just being able to recall their first AND last name—those few people became my Chicago family and without them I might have ran home to Kansas City quicker than you could say---nice to know ya.)  Maggie (a dog that still appreciates any weekend plans to stay in, make pizza and watch movies) and I took a couple years to figure out who we were, what we wanted, and where we wanted to be---for me, all roads led right back to my hometown.  For Maggie, the journey was a little less complicated but after her initial excitement to be out of a house where only her Mommy appreciated her, she decided she could be happy as long as there was a steady flow of cuddles and puppy food. 

          In my short life, I’ve left my hometown again and again and somehow always manage to find my way back---the story of my life:  a restless adventurer.  But what I've always needed (even now) is exactly what Elizabeth Gilbert found in her journey:  Balance.  Balance in life, friends, family, work, and relationships. 

          I don’t think this movie could have been released at a better time.  I need to be reminded that without balance it will inevitably fall apart.  I need to make sure that I’m cultivating the most important relationship in my life—the one I have with myself and I need to make sure I’m doing the things that I’m doing because that’s what I WANT to be doing.  (Don’t get me wrong, I know relationships are a give and take and I’m completely down with compromise but on the other hand, it’s so easy for me to chameleon myself into someone else’s stuff.)   I like doing a lot of different things so it’s easy for me to just go along until I wake up and realize I’m not doing any of the things I like to do anymore.   

          Which brings me to the good timing of this movie, I’ve noticed in the last couple months, the comment to Hubs, “we always do what you wanna do,” is coming out of my mouth more and more and while it’s normally delivered in a playful tone lately it’s gotten less playful each time I say it.  So, in an effort to get back to the things I like, Hubs has started wakeboarding and reduced the pressure on swimming/running down to nil.  I think we’ve come to an understanding that if I’m going to do something that he likes we need to at least do it together—aka triathlon-ing (and I’m sure there are a million other examples I could come up with but those are the only ones sticking out right now.)

         Back when Hubs and I started dating he constantly told me how much he loved my independent nature and it was one of the things that drew him to me but somewhere along way I’ve misplaced that independence.  And now with the release of Eat Pray Love, I have a revived urgency to take some of that liberating independence back…