Eat, Pray, Love

I just saw the trailer for the movie adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. I couldn't be more excited. This book is one of my absolute favorites. I can read and reread it without growing tired of it. In fact, I've listened to the audio version on my 16 hour Colorado road trip.

Despite major differences in belief-systems, I really admire what Gilbert did. If you haven't read the book, I will try not to completely ruin it for you. I'll only cover topics covered in the lovely Julia Roberts trailer. Gilbert's life is typical. She's married and trying to have a baby. But for some reason there's this emptiness and sadness that she feels. Instead of remaining in her marriage she goes on this adventure of self-discovery. She takes off and spends a four months in Italy, four months in India, and four months in Indonesia. It isn't hard to figure out which country goes with it's corresponding verb in the title. What I admire most is her courage. It takes some major strength to just up and leave the life you're expected to be living to really find what you're meant to do.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with three coworkers on our way back to SA from a float trip on the Guadalupe. We passed the church building I worship at, which I made a point to out to my friends. They asked about the belief system of the church of Christ. As I did my best to explain, our conversation took a turn to what type of Bible classes I attend. I said, "singles" and the girls looked at me as if I was crazy. It's hard to explain how the church of Christ divides the Bible classes up. I stumbled through reasoning for dividing classes up by age and marital status. During this conversations it became pretty evident that there was a significant lacking of my particular age group, marital status combo. Yet another thing that is really hard to explain.

I remember the preacher's daughters from Durango. Two lovely, Christ-like women. I was a teenager when they were in their mid-twenties. Their mother was constantly talking to my mother about the fact that her daughters were not yet married. To a teenager, the tone of voice sounded like one you would use when you found out someone had leprosy. And in my little teenage brain I locked away this tidbit of information, "It is bad to be in your mid-twenties and not be married."

Ummm... Hi, my name is Lacy, I'm 26 and I'm not married.

My river-floatin' friends asked if it bothered me, to worship with people who found marriage to be of such importance. Amazingly, I answered an easy no.

I've kind of lived my own, incredibly tame version of Eat, Pray, Love. Like a good Christian university grad I had a serious boyfriend I followed after college. And that's when my life took an unexpected turn. I mean if you asked a 21 year old me if I would be an unmarried international volunteer at the age of 26 I would laugh at you. God has this way of showing you (or smacking you in the face if need be) that you are not where you need to be. He lays opportunities in front of you that will put you on a path better suited for you. I'm not 100% certain that God made me watch the Oscars in 2008 and feel all sad at the lack of glamour in my life, but I do feel that he provided that Cross Cultural Solutions link instead of anything glamorous. I've already stated that I know God sent me to Cambodia instead of Morocco for a reason. Visiting other countries and helping out has changed my life in so many ways. I am happy with where I am. Most importantly, I am happy with who I am.

The first time I read Eat, Pray, Love after the recommendation from a fellow volunteer in Brazil I felt like I had so much more to do in my life. The big changes were just happening. The second time I read the book was right before I went to training for my trip to Phnom Penh and I felt like I was finding what I was supposed to do. I am supposed to change the world. It's a big order, but I'm working pretty hard at it. The best part is it makes me crazy happy. Like marriage and adorable kiddos have made so many of my friends happy, traveling the globe to make a difference and experiencing different cultures makes me happy.

I am excited to watch this movie. There's no doubt that it will make me smile and remember good times in Salvador and Phnom Penh. Yeah, and I'll probably smile because of James Franco too...