Good morning!
Last night Eric and I went out for Mexican food, stuffed ourselves silly on fajitas, and then headed to Chapters book store. Pretty much my dream night. I had gift cards to use and I bought Eat Pray Love and didn’t have to pay a dime.
My story with Eat Pray Love goes back a couple years. In 2008, I purchased the EPL audio book shortly after seeing Elizabeth Gilbert’s interview with Oprah.
I was going through a rough time in my life and this book really spoke to me. I felt like I knew Elizabeth and that I connected with her desire for self-discovery in some way. I thought having her voice in an audio book would comfort me during this tough time in my life and I planned on listening to the book during my commutes to and from work and school.
Ironically, not long after I downloaded the audio book onto my computer, my computer crashed and I lost everything, including the audio book. Life was busy and I just forgot about it assuming one day I would buy the book.
That day was yesterday!
I could not put this book down last night. Around midnight my eyes were drooping and I was literally falling asleep reading. I woke up with my head on Eric’s shoulder around 12:30am and I stumbled up to bed.
Sketchie also loves when I read because it means that I am actually in one spot more than 5 minutes at a time…
I love when he sleeps on me. 
I also love how Elizabeth organized the book in terms of a short story representing each japa mala. I love how the book is divided up by the three countries that she visited, each for a different purpose along her journey. It is quite brilliant actually. The book just exudes symmetry.
I was excited when I woke up this morning for a few reasons:
1) I had a solid 8 hours of sleep
2) Today is my day off
3) I have a book to read
4) The weather is gorgeous and sunny
5) I have new music for my run today (‘Over’ by Drake is a new fav)
I used up the rest of my beet greens and some new spinach for Green Monster energy!
I also threw in some raspberries, Almond Milk, raw maca powder, 1 tbsp homemade almond butter, and 1 frozen banana.
I had another situation on my hands…
I had some Green Monster spillage as I juggled my GM and SLR camera while freaking out about walking through a HUGE cobweb. Story of my life.
It was good though.
I wanted to share with you a quote from Eat Pray Love that I think is really powerful:
“For years, I’d wished I could speak Italian- a language I find more beautiful than roses- but I could never make the practical justification for studying it…What was I going to do with Italian? It’s not like I was going to move there. It would be more practical to learn how to play the accordion.
But why must everything have a practical application? I’d been such a diligent soldier for years- working, producing, never missing a deadline, etc. Is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty?…It’s not like I was saying at age 32, ‘I want to become the principal ballerina for the NYC ballet.” Studying a language is something you can actually do. So I signed up for classes at one of those continuing education places. My friends thought this was hilarious…But I loved it.”
This got me thinking a lot about my life, Eric’s, and whether there were things that we wanted to do, but didn’t think there was a practical application for. Eric is currently struggling with some decisions in his own life (that I can’t get into, but probably will some day in the future) and I know there are many things that he wants right now, but he doesn’t think they are practical to actually do. This makes me very sad to think about. Why must we live our lives ‘by the book’ or doing what others expect of us? As Elizabeth mentioned in the quote above, why must everything have a practical purpose? Can’t we just listen to our hearts sometimes?
So I ask you today…What are the things you want to do but you aren’t sure they have a practical purpose?
One of the things that we desperately want to do at this stage in our lives is travel. We always said that our free time in our late twenties would be spent traveling together, but so far we have not found a practical purpose (or free time) to try to put this goal into action.
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