"Attraversiamo"...

Attraversiamo, Italian for "Let's cross over", this was the last line in Eat Pray Love, the book I've been reading. Sunday night I stayed up and finished it. Wow. Incredible. I kept prolonging the end, reading the last few pages extra slowly, enjoying every last second of the journey. But I realized that my personal journey which began coincidentally the same time I began the book will continue long after I finish it.

This theme of "crossing over" has been prevelant through the book, and my life latley. Crossing over through Italy, my season of pleaure, enjoyment, simple utter contentment. Crossing through India, my time of seeking God, seeking devotion with Him and what it means to live and love. And then crossing over into Indonesia, into a revelation of BALANCE, what it means to balance being in this world of mine-my desires, my questions, my identity struggles - with my faith and my relationship with God. Principally the balance of feeling like I have to justify my faith because of my sexuality. It's an awful conflict feeling like your love for God and effort to live for Him is invalid now because you happen to wrestle with this one issue.

But it's a journey. And there's good days and bad ones. I'm just grateful that I've learned so much about myself and my life through journeying along with Elizabeth Gilbert on Eat Pray Love. It's been an amazing time reading that book, and the journey's only just begun...

Pleasure, Devotion, Balance

I feel like there's so much I'm still processing, so much I'm still sorting out on this new journey. I've got so much in my head but I don't know how to put into words, let alone on this blog. So here's what I've been thinking about most lately:

The parallel connections between my life and the book I'm reading, Eat Pray Love. (*see earlier post below*)

I've realized that my metaphorical Italy was last year, my final year of college at UE. Much like the author's time in Italy, for me it was a season of pleasure, of pure contentment, of simple enjoyment of life. Then Elizabeth Gilbert travels to India in pursuit of the divine. And that is where I am now. In India, seeking God, seeking out who He is and what it means to fall in love with Him again. I'm learning new things about myself, accepting new things. I'm in a season of revelation, of discovery. It's hard at times. But it's worth it.

And then comes Indonesia... that's where I'm at in the book right now. And I can see the application to my life already. Her time in Indonesia was in pursuit of balance; balance between worldly enjoyment and spiritual devotion. Although I'm in my India, for me it seems to intrinsically overlap in some ways with my metaphorical Indonesia. I'm in the middle of my pursuit of BALANCE; figuring out how to balance who I am, my identity, my sexuality-with my faith, my spiritual devotion and relationship with God. That complicated dichotomy is where I am right now. Yeah...this is gonna be a long journey...

Eat. Pray. Love.

"One woman's search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia." This is the premise of a book that you might not think I'd relate or connect particularly deeply with. au contraire... About two weeks ago my friend Jenni bought me this book, Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. And let's just say that it is possibly the best book I've EVER read.

On almost every page I laugh, I cry, I reminisce, I FEEL. I love her thought process, her humor, her sense of self and search for...well, for EVERYTHING. I'm glad to know that someone else has been on that search other than me. Eat Pray Love follows the journey of Elizabeth Gilbert, a renowned New York writer who had a successful career, luxurious home, and marriage, but loses it all and begins an around-the-world journey to Italy, India and Indonesia in search of herself, God and other great mysteries of life. Set against the backdrop of 3 different cultures, Elizabeth searches to examine 3 different aspects of her nature: pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and the balance of the two in Indonesia.

There are so many things I've learned already from this book, so many things that have made me laugh, tear up, etc. But I'll post only an example or two of each instance:

LAUGH:

"And, oh, the woes that traveling has inflicted on my digestive tract! In Lebanon I became so explosively ill one night that I could only imagine I'd contracted a Middle Eastern version of the Ebola virus. In Hungary, I suffered from an entirely different kind of bowel affliction, which changed forever the way I feel about the term "Soviet Bloc". But I have other bodily weaknesses, too. My back gave out on my first day of traveling in Africa, I was the only member of my party to emerge from the jungles of Venezuela with infected spider bites, and I ask of you - I beg of you! - who gets sunburned in Stockholm?! Really!?"

"Believe me, I am fully aware of the irony of going to Italy in pursuit of pleasure during a period of self-imposed celibacy. But I do think abstinence is the right thing for me at the moment. I was especially sure of it the night I could hear my upstairs neighbor having the longest, loudest, flesh-smackingest, bed-thumpingest, back-breakingest session of lovemaking I'd ever heard. This slam-dance went on for well over an hour, complete with hyperventilating sound effects and wild animal calls. I lay there only one floor below, alone and tired in my bed, and all I could think was, 'That sounds like an awful lot of work...'"

CRY:

"What I write in my journal tonight is that I am weak and full of fear. I explain that Depression and Loneliness have shown up, and I'm scared they will never leave. I say that I don't want to take the drugs anymore, but I'm frightened I will have to. I'm terrified that I will never really pull my life together. In response, a voice, something from within me arose and whispered to me: "I'm here. I love you. I don't care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. No matter how you fall and fail, I will love you through that. There's nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness, and nothing will ever exhaust me."

So basically I am loving this book. Loving the journey. I can so relate, and I feel like in so many ways I am in the exact same place, the exact same season of life that she was in when she wrote it. Well, EXCEPT for the fact that I'm stuck in central Ohio and she spent 4 months of her journey in Italy eating amazing food and surrounded by ridiculously beautiful people. jealous... But still, I'm loving the journey.