Thoughts

I finally watched Eat, Pray, Love over the weekend during a self imposed chick flick movie extravaganza. I had not really heard positive reviews by people I know but one close friend made reference to the movie & my current life journey and ever since I have been curious what the movie is really about. I knew it was about a woman who was unhappy in her marriage and goes out in search of meaning but my interpretation of this is different from what I heard said about it. She is unhappy with herself thus in her whole life not just with her marriage. She feels lost and overwhelmed by the stereotype of what a married woman is supposed to do and want. I think this is a VERY TRUE life scenario but for most of us admitting this seems wrong. I adored/adore my husband and I love that I was married to him and in a relationship with him for 18 years at his passing but I admit that I had those same feelings of being lost early on in our marriage. I never expected to get caught up in my adult, married life like I did then. I thought I had to keep a tidy, organized home inside & out no matter what. I/we had to work our tails off to be able to afford that home and all it entailed. We could not spend our hard earned money on things we wanted but we had to spend it rather on things we "needed". And we did these things, well, my husband did not conform as much as I did. Thank God! That caused some tensions. I remember one day off getting out of the shower and looking at my feet and noticing that my toenails were not painted. I just started crying like a baby. I have always kept my toenails painted red, always. That along with my red lipstick was kinda my thing. I got out my polish and started painting them immediately and spent the rest of that afternoon thinking about what was wrong as I was cleaning the house, on my day off. That was part of what was wrong. I had free time and I was using it to clean the damn house and instead of thinking about what was right I was worried about what was wrong. I resented it totally yet it was my idea to buy the house. I , too, like the girlfriend in the movie, bought little baby clothes and kept them hidden not because I was waiting for Paul to be ready to have kids but because I felt the presure that this is whatI am suppossed to want. I did not want kids and niether did Paul. We discussed it and decided to just leave it open. I later found out that I could not have them and that was a weird relief and sadness. I gifted some of the things to my great niece. I was lost to myself and honestly I think many women live this way. It is not the fault of the men we married, hopefully. This is not true in all cases but, well, I will keep the examples to my situation. My husband married a woman who wanted to be a poet and was very optimistic in here outlook on life. I went to college and worked full time yet still had time to go out several nights a week to see live music, usually he was in one of the bands, I had fun friends and spontaneously moved to California eventually with him. I wanted to travel and speak French in France one day. I also wanted to follow him around on tour and watch him on stage playing in front of a large crowd. Now I just wanted someone to clean the house for me and take me to dinner. I lost that twinkle in my eye and I knew it. It was not until serious illness hit us both that I got it back. My zest for life returned after my life was almost taken from me at the ripe old age of thirty five. Then my husband was diagnosed with cancer. Hello,wake up!!!! We did not put our things in storage and head out to Italy, India & Bali but we did something similar. We acknowledged our stuff and released it with light & love. We tried new things like QiGong, T'ai Chi, meditation, painting and a new dietary path. We made new friends on a similar path. We looked for God and found him/her within ourselves. We cleared out those spaces in our minds and let the universe or God come rushing in and we stopped trying to control it all. Life works so much better when we let go and simply trust in ourselves which means trusting in God. So yes Paul and I went on our own Eat, Pray, Love journey together but also individually. We were never happier and he put out a cd of his music and we both got poetry published. We got those twinkles back in our eyes and we fell back in love in a BIG way with each other and with ourselves.
We lost some people along the way who did not understand that this was our journey. After he passed I was scared but you know I was not lost. I continue to live this way. The scenes that I love most in the movie are when Julia Roberts and her friend are at the airport and her friend tells her that she was hard on her because while she loves her job, her man and her kid she wants to go with her and then she tells her she loves her and is proud of her. There are people that were in my life that I wish I could have that experience with. I also love when Julia is describing the ruins to her exboyfriend and says something like ruin leads to transformation. Tell it sister because that is so true in my experience!
I loved this movie and it made me realize that I love my life even now after my husband passed.
It is hard without him but I do believe he is with me more now than ever just in a different way. Paul is my guru, my greatest teacher!