Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It (7 page)

—

Alexandria Hodge

I
first read
Eat Pray
Love
as a teenager, and still think back to it almost daily. At nineteen years old, it was shocking for me to read about a woman ending a marriage simply because she wasn't happy. My mother hadn't been happy a single day of her nearly three-decade-long marriage to my father and yet they were still together. She believed that success, happiness (despite her personal experience) and wholeness began with an intact family unit—which, of course, meant an intact marriage. And Elizabeth Gilbert hadn't only left her marriage—she had gone overseas, which was a dream of mine. And she had done this just because she wanted to; just because she thought it would heal her!

Eventually, after many tumultuous years in which we found ourselves unsuccessful in many ways, deeply unhappy and far from whole, my parents' marriage finally fell apart, no matter my mother's steadfast beliefs. I was left feeling like the casualty of it
all, with a deeply entrenched cynicism about marriage, a conviction that love, in the end, was doomed to unhappiness and a prevailing uncertainty over what happiness in a relationship even looked like or who had the right to it in the first place.

After the divorce, I looked at
Eat Pray Love
in a new light. It helped me rewire what my parents had unknowingly taught me about love and marriage just when I needed those lessons most. It became my road map, a way to avoid the minefield of what I saw as my parents' mistakes.

Because of
Eat Pray Love
, I was careful about the parameters of any relationships I entered into and made sure to monitor my own happiness. Like Elizabeth, I realized that I have a right to my own well-being. I'm now in a healthy relationship with someone who is a true partner. We've made a commitment always to do the things that heal us and make us happy as individuals and as a couple. Right now, that's in the form of traveling. I just started my master's degree at University College London, and my partner is continuing his own education while we're here. Turns out love doesn't have to be unhappy after all. Thanks for the powerful life lesson, Liz.

—

Amy B. Scher

W
hen the best medical doctors in America gave up on me at the end of 2007, I was twenty-eight years old and felt the steel doors of possibility slam shut. All the hope I'd been mustering to recover from late-stage Lyme disease and its life-threatening complications had finally drained from me like water from a cracked bucket. But shortly after the last doctor delivered the last words of defeat, a new opportunity blew those doors wide open. I was accepted into an experimental stem cell treatment program in a tiny clinic in Delhi, India.

India!

Having read
Eat Pray Love
along with the rest of the world, I had already smelled each smell with Elizabeth, tasted each taste and become enchanted by the exotic country of India.
Eat Pray Love
entertained me, allowing me to escape my own impossible life. Now, it would help me find the courage to try to save it.

At first, I was terrified of going. My doctors were against it, and I had no idea if this radical treatment would kill me or cure me. This was quite literally a last-ditch effort as there were no other options left. Then I thought of Elizabeth's colorful stories and transformed them into a landscape for what could be my own crazy adventure. Before
Eat Pray Love
, I knew almost nothing about India. But Liz's own bravery made accessible the idea of a woman traveling alone to a country like India. It wasn't yet popular, but it was definitely possible. On December 9, 2007, I boarded a plane for New Delhi.

How I Ate

Why oh why can't this be in China? That was my honest-to-goodness first thought about the location of this new treatment. I was dying, and all I wanted was Chinese food! In fact, there was no food on earth I disliked more than Indian food. My first meals at the hospital were saucy, earth-toned globs that had “no name, ma'am” when I asked what they were.

The wafting smells, the pungent taste and the mixed textures of curry were too much for my delicate digestion. Often unable to keep any food down at all, I worried about the consequences for my already underweight body.

At about the three-week mark of my stay, though, something happened. The smells that used to nauseate me started to feel like a comfort. I began having cravings for my favorite “green chicken,” delighting the hospital cook to no end. I started to embrace mutton and ghee and all the foods I had resisted. My body started to long for each plate, and sometimes I asked for seconds and even thirds.

By the time I returned home, I had a new favorite cuisine and an extra twenty pounds of healthy body weight to show for it.

How I Prayed

During my first few days in India, my doctor sent a colleague of hers from another hospital to visit me. She arrived one afternoon during my nap, explaining little about who she was or what she was doing. She carried a huge purse, had long silky hair and wore intricately patterned Indian attire. She felt closer to a presence than a person. She was a perfect swirly blend of intellect and spirit, all wrapped in a sari.

As she sat with me, she began speaking of her Buddhist practice called
daimoku
—chanting with specific words that reveal one's state of inner Buddhahood. She told me the story of how several years earlier it had brought her husband back to life. I took a deep interest in Dr. M.'s practice and became her student. She invited me to her home, and as we chanted, I felt the energy shift around me and a palpable change in my own body.

Her gift became my new ritual. I fell asleep every single night staring at the bright blue wall in my hospital room and chanting, the day fading with each repetition.

How I Loved

The physiotherapy room was adorned with yellow curtains and always filled with music that was much too loud for my taste. That's where I saw her—thick, dark, curly hair hiding under a baseball hat and a giant smile that opened up to the world. Charlotte had come to visit her mother who was being treated at the
hospital for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). ALS is a fatal disease involving the nerve cells and has a life expectancy of two to five years from the time of diagnosis.

My meeting with Charlotte was never supposed to happen. I was set to return home three days earlier, but a bout of food poisoning left me unable to fly. Charlotte arrived from London to visit her mom a few days before my rescheduled flight home. For days, we laughed together almost nonstop while silently wondering what would become of our quick bonding and seemingly mystical meeting. I had never been in a relationship with a woman, but I quickly knew this could be something more than friendship. Soon we had to separate. Over the coming weeks, we wrote enough e-mails to each other to fill books. Then, three months after leaving Delhi, we decided to take the next step and meet halfway between her home in London and mine in California. We settled on Boston. The night we arrived, after our first kiss, I asked Charlotte to marry me. She said no. We laughed, and time moved on.

We racked up travel miles just to be together for a week or two at a time. Moving was impossible—her mother's health was rapidly declining, as was my father's in California. But we made it work. My dad always told me the way you know if someone is “the one” is when you feel like “it's you and me against the world, baby.” And I did.

Our love story continued, but not in the typical way. We held hands over Charlotte's mother's hospital bed as she took her last breaths. We then held my dad's ashes in those same hands not long after.

While it has not all been a fairy tale, we have always remained absorbed in the magic. That feeling the first day in the physio
room; the knowing we were meant to be together; the laughter and joy we find in each every day; and the absolute blessing of what we commonly refer to as “the best love story ever”—not because it's been perfect but because it's ours.

Since the day I took that giant leap of faith and gave an echoing yes! to my Indian adventure, I have survived what doctors said I never would. I have taken my healing to new heights. I have turned inward to recover completely, far beyond what medicine or stem cells or doctors could offer. I have lived, and I have lived well.

•   •   •

I
n the years since the incurable cure, I have made up for lost time. Charlotte and I have traveled all over the world. We've eaten copious amounts of pasta in Venice, Italy, and cuddled up in a jeep while roaring over the red dirt of the South African desert.

Eat Pray Love
started for me as many books do but became so much more.

Eat Pray Love
gave me the chutzpah to jump into the ultimate unknowing. It gave me the courage to make it through each day in India when I only had wipes for showers, and the curiosity to take responsibility for changing my health and my life.
Eat Pray Love
helped me turn a whole lotta faith over to the Universe. Most of all, it gave me the everlasting grace to stumble and sometimes even fall, knowing that it's much more fun if you always play life like one hell of a grand adventure.

—

Linsi Broom

M
y first encounter with
Eat Pray Love
was the movie. I remember watching it and thinking that an adventure like that could never be possible for someone like me: middle-class, wrought with student loan debt, juggling a full-time job and full-time school. I couldn't imagine a world where one could just drop out of one's own life. After all, my family taught me that my name was all I had and I must—above all else—make sure that name signified responsibility, practicality and a dogged work ethic. It wasn't until 2013, when I experienced a series of very intense sudden failures—in school, in love and in life—that I began to question everything I thought I knew about what I should and should not be. About what
responsible
and
practical
even meant.

After that string of failures, I moved across the country, desperate to start over and rebuild my life. I wanted to replace all
that I had lost, and quickly. But I kept failing—in fact, for someone who had never failed at anything (until I failed at everything), it felt like I was overdosing on it.

During this time, I happened to meet an intrepid British traveler who was making his way across America on six dollars a day. We became fast friends, and as he shared stories of his experiences, something stirred inside me. Here was this regular guy doing something completely unexpected. He was taking a risk, and he was being rewarded with human connection, cosmic support and adventure. I returned to the internal argument I had when I first watched
Eat Pray Love
. Could I do that? Could I have an adventure for the pure sake of personal growth?

I let those questions marinate. I found a temporary job, and I started putting money away—subconsciously at first, but then intentionally. I started imagining the trip I would take. I had traveled internationally before but never alone and never anywhere exotic. At night after work, I would research places and dream of the possibilities. One day during a conversation with a coworker, she mentioned how one of her lifelong goals was to do a Vipassana course in Nepal. Even though I taught yoga and meditated, I was unfamiliar with Vipassana and only had a vague idea of where Nepal was located. As I listened to her, something clicked inside of me. I just knew. That's what I would do! I would go to Nepal and take a Vipassana course. Later that day, I applied for the course. I told people, “Oh, I'm sure I won't get accepted.” A few days later, I received my acceptance e-mail. My temporary job was ending in a few months. All of my colleagues were making other arrangements—finding new jobs, starting new ventures. Anytime someone asked me what my plans were,
I would say, “Oh, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll travel.” And then I would laugh nervously. I knew that I was going on the trip, but I was afraid to say it out loud for fear of judgment.

In my private time, I would fret over the details. Did I have enough money? What would my family and friends think? Was I being foolish? I gave myself ultimatums. If I found a job before my departure date, then I would cancel the trip. Still, I kept planning. I decided that I would start in Thailand, make my way to Nepal for the course and then let the momentum of the trip lead me where it might. I would return to the States after three months (approximately how long I thought my budget would last).

Finally, after months of self-doubt and procrastination, I made the final leap and bought my plane ticket. It was done. I was going.

•   •   •

H
aving my ticket in hand didn't stop me from continuing to agonize over my decision. Even on the plane, I felt sick to my stomach. But once my feet were on the ground in Thailand, I was committed. I joked after I left Thailand for Nepal, “That was certainly the ‘Eat' portion of my
Eat Pray Love
adventure.” And on the plane to Nepal, as my breath caught in my chest at the first glimpse of the Himalayas, I thought to myself, “This has to be the ‘Love' part.”
Eat Pray Love
found me wherever I went. People I met would kid me and ask me if I was on some kind of mission of self-discovery. I'd laugh, but I began to feel that Elizabeth Gilbert and I were cosmically connected—as single women, as brave souls, as truth seekers. And then, through a series of unforeseen events, I ended up on the island of Bali. I
had forgotten that Bali was where Elizabeth, too, had ended her journey, until late one night when I was having dinner at a local
warung
. I was chatting with a Balinese man about my trip, and he said, “You remind me of that woman who came here and wrote that book.”

That night, as I was getting ready for bed, I glanced at the bookshelf in my guesthouse and literally laughed out loud. There on the shelf sat a weathered copy of, yes,
Eat Pray Love
. I had only ever seen the movie; now, over the next few days, I devoured the book. I related to all of Elizabeth's stories about meditation, having just spent ten days in silence myself, and especially the deep longing she felt for connection and understanding. Tears streamed down my face as I reached the end of the book. My own trip was coming to a close and there was no fairy-tale ending in sight. I was still very much alone.

On my last evening in Bali, I sat on a cliff overlooking the ocean. As the sun faded out of sight, I thought to myself, “I took a chance. I went against everything I thought I should be. I have seen and experienced love in every way possible. I am okay. I am more than okay—I am content.”

All those years ago,
Eat Pray Love
sparked a question in my mind: Could I do something “irresponsible”; could I take a risk with no guarantees?

Finally, I had my answer: I could. I could question the narrative I had been taught about myself. I could take a risk and have it pay off in dividends. I will be forever changed by that trip and the people I met along the way. Thank you, Elizabeth, from the bottom of my heart.