Eat, Pray, Love

I am a girl. And there are stereotypical roles about being a girl that I most certainly fill. For example, I like the color pink. A lot. It is the color scheme of my bedroom at school. It is what I would like my new bike to be the color of. It's not the best color on me, seeing as with my blonde hair and blue eyes royal blue suites me the best, but I do enjoy wearing the color a lot, and in some cases I pull off an imperfect version of a Barbie doll. But yes, like a lot of girls, I like the color pink.

I also like chocolate. Oh how I love chocolate. I asked my Mom to buy me m&ms when I returned to the states (not because England didn't have them but because I didn't feel like spending the money on them). I just made my sister and I a nutritious dinner of chocolate chip pancakes smothered in maple syrup (and I wondered why the British consider them a dessert!). When I feel sad I crave Hershey's and nothing makes me happier than a delicious fudge brownie. Yes, I love my chocolate.

I'm a hopeless romantic. While I don't sit around in my room and dream of a prince charming to come save me, I most certainly did at one point in my life. I love all the Disney Princesses and I still get excited about watching Disney movies. I love hearing proposal stories, I stalk friends' engagements and wedding photos on facebook, and yes I know what I want my wedding dress to look like and what ring I hope to sport on my left ring finger. I'm a chick; I love my romance.

With that said it comes naturally that I'm also very emotional. I cry when I do something wrong and it upsets my boyfriend. I cry when I can't succeed at something, or I lose my patience. I cry when I hear a pretty song on the radio or watch a happy movie. Stock up on the tissues, because like a stereotypical girl, I do cry a lot.

The list can go on. I love shopping, especially for shoes. I like dressing up for no reason at all. I love my girls' nights and I always look forward to going out and dancing. I take pictures of flowers, I coo over any baby animal, and if you dare ask me I will gab on and on and on about relationships and boys. I hope I've proven my point by now. I'm very much your typical girl.

And if that's not enough to convince you, then maybe this is. I love, LOVE, Elizabeth Gilbert's most famous book Eat, Pray, Love.

I am only halfway through the first third of the book (section Italy, or "eat"), and I cannot get enough. You can assume I jumped on the reading bandwagon. Although I've contemplated buying this book when I first saw it on shelves at Barnes and Noble, it wasn't until I found out the movie was coming out that I finally decided to spend my £8 ($12) on it.

And I am so glad I did.

This woman is basically living my dream. With the exception of getting divorced and having what appears to be a mid-life/identity crisis, she is a successful magazine writer living in New York City. She can afford this one-year escapade of living in three different countries for four months each because her publisher gave her an advance on the book that I'm currently in love with. She's traveled all over the world, has worked interesting jobs (she wrote about being a bartender which later inspired for Coyote Ugly). Everything I hope to get out of my life, she seems to have already achieved.

But I feel like I relate to Gilbert on a more personal level. Yes, there is a bit of an age gap between us. Yes, she's seen more of life and has gone through things I've never been close to experiencing. But she is still a woman. Or as I am more comfortable saying, she is still a girl like me (it doesn't matter what age I am, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to consider myself a woman). Naturally, we have similarities. Common ones (like crying over men…go figure) and some a little more uncommon.

For example, she wants to learn Italian. Why? Because she thinks it's a beautiful language. There is really no purpose behind it other than desire. Which is funny, because I have been talking for years of my desire to be fluent in Polish. My grandfather was 100% Polish and knew of a few words and phrases in this not so common language. Since then, I've been fascinated with learning it. There is no real reason behind. I don't know anyone who speaks Polish. I can't think of any time in my life that I would actually use it, other than if I were to visit Poland (which I would like to do). I just want to learn it. Maybe in honor of my grandpa. Maybe because I think it'd be really cool to cuss someone out in a language that almost no one knows. Or maybe because it would make me different. How many people do you know speak fluent Polish, or any Polish for that matter? See, I've proved my point.

But let's go with something a little deeper than a language. Something that I think everyone has considered or dealt with in his or her life. I'm talking religion. Spirituality. Or even more to the point, God. The big man upstairs. The One that people argue over, pray to, curse at, sing for, you name it. It's inevitable. God is a part of our lives, whether we believe in Him or not.

In Gilbert's case, she didn't talk to God until she was bawling on the floor of her bathroom in the middle of the night when she realized that she didn't want a family and she didn't want to be married to her husband any more. She claims that culturally she is a Christian, but because she cannot agree that Christ is the only path to God, she cannot call herself a Christian. But she does believe in God, or to directly quote her, "I believe in a magnificent God."

But there's always more to religion than just believing. There's always more to discover, more to learn. More questions to answer, and even more to remain unanswered. Hence, Gilbert wants to go on this religious journey.

She is in Bali on a magazine assignment when she meets a medicine man who reads her palm. She tells him what she really wants, which is a true, lasting experience with God, but without having to give up everything, like a Priest or nun would do. In her own words, "I want to learn how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God."

She basically just summed up the internal battle I've been facing since I was 15, when I decided that I really am a Christian. Wanting to experience God's supreme love, but also be able to enjoy the world (worldly desires and being a true Christian always have seemed to clash).

I don't know what she discovers out of her adventure spiritually just yet. That'll be covered in the middle section when she visits India, covering the "pray" part in the book. Italy is the pursuit of pleasure, India is the pursuit of devotion, and Indonesia is the pursuit of balance. Right now I'm still in pleasure. Next I will learn about devotion (something I should really work on) and then the end of the book I'm hoping will help me discover how I can balance the two in my life as well.

This is what I love about this book. It's the first time in so long that I'm actually excited to read. I don't want to put it down. I am so curious as to what Gilbert will learn next and not only what she takes away from her experiences but what I can take away from her experiences. I'm hoping that her self-discovery will bring me some self-discovery.

Even if the book doesn't answer my own questions about balancing my life with God, it is bringing inspiration. It is reminding me of why it is I want to be a writer. This idea that one person's story can be so inspiring and encouraging to others. One day I'd like to do some crazy adventure and then write about it, and hope that someone can take something away from it. That is my ultimate goal with writing. That it has an effect (or is affect? I will never know).

But for now I'm still just a college student with much more to learn about writing and no where near perfecting this crazy little craft. So for the meantime I'm going to be a girl and grab some m&ms, and then sit back and continue reading my beloved new book. And you can bet that I will let you know all about it.