Eat, Pray, Love Uncensored

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.