Yesterday afternoon, I was lying on my bed, appendages splayed like a star fish, trying to take some deep breaths. It hadn’t been the easiest day. Hell, it hasn’t been the easiest year. A decade-long relationship ended. One book project was deeply satisfying, but left me broke; another paid well, but left me feeling dehumanized. As I was trying to collect myself, my cat crawled under the bed and started throwing up on my suitcases stored there.
I started giggling and thought to myself, “This is no eat, pray, love.”
As everyone makes their plans for a girls night out with Julia this weekend, may I remind you that actual transition doesn’t usually fit itself into three discrete categories, leading one on a journey to foreign lands, and eventually plopping you down on Oprah’s couch? It’s a beautiful book. I’m not hating. I just think it’s important for us all to remember that it’s a fantasy, polished up, sanitized version of change.
Cataclysmic life changes, especially for women, often involve financial insecurity, relying on a support system of friends and relatives, being truly vulnerable in a new way, re-evaluating one’s ideas about love, success, and happiness (rarely, I might add, in a villa, ashram, or beach condo), letting go of security and control, shaping a new identity, and/or imagining a life and trying to go after it with whatever internal and external resources one can muster.
Real transition, in my experience, is better explored with a stiff V&T and Pema Chodron, than a memoir that makes you feel like your breakdown isn’t glamorous enough. Just sayin.
One Comment
Thanks for this, Courtney. I feel the same way about the film. I haven’t seen it, but all the glamorizing of foreign lifestyle and food seem kind of — dare I say it: shallow. There are so many layers upon which I feel need to comment, but the cleanliness of her breakthrough combined with the typical situation of woman rewards herself with life’s big no no’s: food and sex — its just too much for me to accept as relatable.
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