Eat, Pray, Love.

"Eat, Pray, Love" is a book I've heard about for several years. I never read it because Oprah loves it, and I tend to think Oprah is full of crap a lot of the time. I also thought it was a book about a woman who went on some spiritual journey to India to "find herself", and most of the time I think all that is a load of crap, too. BUT- In the past several months, some close friends of mine have been RAVING about it, and when it ended up on the bar in front of me one night by chance (yes...at a bar, and don't ask) I decided it was about time I gave it a chance.
I'm only on page 89, but already I feel like this book was written FOR ME, and can see how it's easily going to be one of my favorites.

Here are a couple little excerpts from the book that really hit home with me. The context won't make much sense unless you've read the book, but maybe they'll make you curious enough to pick it up yourself and read it.

"The Augusteum (a neglected building in Rome) warns me not to get too attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong to, or what function I may once have intended to serve. I might have been a glorious monument to somebody -true enough- but tomorrow I could be a fireworks depository. Even in the Eternal City, says the silent Augusteum, one must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation."

This one is my favorite (so far, as of page 89):

"My mother had made choices in her life, as we all must, and she is at peace with them. I can see her peace. She did not cop out on herself. The benefits of her choices are massive -a long, stable marriage to a man she still calls her best friend; a certainty in her own strength. Maybe some things were sacrificed, and my dad made sacrifices, too- but who amongst us lives without sacrifice? And the question now for me is, what are MY choices to be? What do I believe that I deserve in this life? Where can I accept sacrifice and where can I not?"

And finally, this is from an email Pat sent me (we both work overnight and email each other semi-frequently) about this stupid break up I'm going through: "....but regardless, I know you well enough to know that you are going to come out of this a much better/stronger/smarter/ more resilient person. You're SO much stronger than me...and if I can get through some of this crap, I know that you can."

That brings me to this. I've had a lot of my close friends telling me how strong I am. And I've had some not-so-close friends tell me how strong I am. Where do you guys see this strength? Because on days like this, I sure don't feel it. Or see it. At all. And why do I have to be strong? I don't want to have to be strong. I want things to go back to the way they were three months ago, when I was happy. I know I'll be happy again, but I just don't feel like I should've ever lost that happiness, and why do I have to struggle to find it when I was content before? I just don't think it's fair.