Searching for Everything

"...perhaps my life has not actually been so chaotic, after all. It is merely this world that is chaotic, bringing changes to us all that nobody could have anticipated." --Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love 

I came across the news of Elizabeth Gilbert's divorce the other day, and it gave me mixed feelings. First, what a world we live in where the marital status of celebrities major and minor are headlines, where the celebrities themselves feel compelled to share their take on this news, and where we common folk feel entitled to have our own opinions about someone else's personal life.

That craziness aside, I felt...okay. While I'm not happy that someone I look up to is going through an emotional time, I don't think I'm as sad (or mad or personally offended) as other readers of Eat, Pray, Love are. In fact, I can only hope that this is a positive and necessary change in Gilbert's life, one that couldn't have been easy, but will allow Gilbert to live her most genuine life. I guess for me, E,P,L was never about the relationship at the end. The adventure and message I got was to live wild and free, to make your own destiny, to seek both pleasure and divinity.

For these reasons, plus the fact that I didn't have a library book on deck when I finished my most recent read, I'm rereading E,P,L. It's my third time, but it'll be the first time the Love section might mean something to me. My first read, shortly before I studied abroad in Rome, focused on the Eat section and convinced me to go to Rome in the first place. I gave more attention to the Pray section in my second read, during my MercyWorks year, and it resonated with my own spiritual journey. At neither of those times was I in a physical or emotional space to think about Love, but now I am.

I'll read in the hopes of learning more about balancing pleasure and the divine, reminding myself why I chose the life experiences I did, and following all the ins and outs of my million gorgeous curiosities.