Love & Light.

I feel like I'm posting a lot about Elizabeth Gilbert in this blogging comeback period, but a) I like her stuff, and b) I have a slew of notes in my phone that I took while I was computer access-less, or didn't have time to blog them.

In light of all that, here's a gem by Richard from Texas (made famous in Eat, Pray, Love) that I just adore:

“You miss him? So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it.

You’re just afraid to let go of the last bits of [him] because then you’ll be really alone, and [you are] scared to death of what will happen if [you're] really alone.

But here’s what you gotta understand, Groceries. If you clear out all that space in your mind that you’re using right now to obsess about this guy, you’ll have a vacuum there, an open spot – a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with the doorway? It will rush in – God will rush in – and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed.

So stop using [him] to block that door. Let it go.”

Sadly, Richard from Texas died recently. Well, I say sadly. But really....right now, he is experiencing more about love and light than I can fathom. So maybe it's just, as my nephew would say when I'm at a wedding and miss target practice with him and Grandpa, "so sad for Rebekah." :-)

I'm grateful to have long passed the point post-relationship drama that Richard talks about here. I mean, I once was there, and it royally stunk, so I know how that feels, but I believe this applies so well to so many things that nag at our well-being. Things we leave behind, things we haven't yet accomplished, regrets of what's undone, how we could've handled something versus how we did handle something...etc.

It has been hard for me in the past to just let go. I have a horrible (and really, when I think about it, egotistical) tendency to think if only I'd done something differently, everyone would be happy and healthy and the whole world would be peaceful and the educational system would be fixed and the economy would bounce back. ;-) But we all know that's not true.

So I've been trying to do two things in the past few months:

1. Cut out like a cancer things and people and situations and interactions that eat away at me, and drain me, and cause me to be a rebekah I don't necessarily like. (I realize this is impossible and unrealistic to completely avoid, but when I have a choice, why choose what is bad for me?)

2. Let go. Not obsess about how I could have done something differently -- even if it were to my detriment -- just so a situation may or may not be better in the end. And again, this is not about romantic relationships for me at this point in my life. I'm well past that (praise God above). I have to let go of not being able to be Superwoman for every single person I know. I have to let go of the fact that not everyone is happy with me for making decisions I feel are best for me. I have to let go of the concept that everyone will not agree with my choices, even when those choices are the result of what I've prayed diligently about and are content with. And it also applies to smaller stuff. Grocery store altercations. Stupid drivers who honk at me for no reason. (Even with me, there's not always a reason.) Wrecks I've had that have been my fault, or not. Things I've done that I know have hurt people, and that I've apologized for, but aren't yet back to shiny and happy yet. Etc.

Not everyone has these issues, I know. But I do. So because I do, I appreciate Richard from Texas' words, and his sentiments, and that Liz Gilbert chose to document and share those with people like me.

I'm still working on the "sending light and love" part. That might be a lifelong struggle, especially for that woman in Albertson's who huffed and puffed about the number of items in my basket while her child was climbing all over my basket. And that was a few weeks ago, so clearly I've let it go and am totally cool about it. :-)

I do love the idea of "clearing out that space" that is currently used by all the anxious, unnecessary thoughts. Because Lord knows there's not a lot of space left to let the good in. So spring cleaning that part of my world is a necessity.

(The photo I've posted here is of Richard from Texas and Elizabeth Gilbert on the Oprah show.)

Committed.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, recently published a follow-up book: Committed.

I wasn't sure I'd love it -- especially since the content didn't really apply to me as a content, unmarried person. To be honest, it wasn't my favorite. But as it turned out, my brain was so thirsty for her enchantingly refreshing writing style that I just drank that whole book up in spite of myself.

Some of my favorite quotes from the book are:

• When you are the giant, alien visitor to a remote and foreign culture, it is sort of your job to become an object of ridicule. It's the least you can do, really, as a polite guest.

• The happier twin sister of loneliness is privacy.

• Lebensneid - life envy, the certainty that somebody else is much luckier than you.

• When you have only one path set before you, you can generally feel confident that it was the correct path to have taken.

• Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured the entirety of your life's expectations into the hands of one mere person. Keeping that going is hard work.

• I need him because I happen to adore him, because his company brings me gladness & comfort, and because, as a friend's grandfather once put it, "Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone."

• The emergency that always gets you in the end is the one you didn't prepare for.

• There is hardly a more gracious gift that we can offer somebody than to accept them fully, almost despite themselves.

• At some point in our lives we must stop beating ourselves up over bygone blunders -- even blunders that seem so painfully obvious to us in retrospect -- and we must move on with our lives.

Eat, Pray, Love (no spoilers)

I love to be entertained.

Books, movies, stories, plays, travel -- you name it.

And although I love movies like there's no tomorrow and prove that via Netflix each month, there have been very few times I can remember a movie following its precursor book closely enough to satisfy my cinematic expectations.

"Eat, Pray, Love," however, was spot on.

If you liked the book, I think you'll like the movie. If you didn't like the book, chances are you won't like the movie. If you didn't read the book, I still think you'd like the movie. If you are not okay with the premise of the whole thing, you probably won't like either.

See? No spoilers. :-)