But for the grace of God.

A good friend suggested that I read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. If you haven't read it, you should. And if you're going to read it, you might not want to read this post. But really, you can, the book's not a cliff hanger.

Anyway, I read it. And it resonated. There is a scene where Elizabeth, in her young thirties is trapped, TRAPPED in a marriage. At night she crawls up on the bathroom floor and cries. She's well off and not abused in any way but she's in this relationship that she wants to escape and she can't. So she hides in the bathroom and cries. I read this, and I realized how easily it could have been me. In a heart beat almost ... there, but for the grace of God, go I. If they, any of them, hadn't had the strength to walk away when they did it could have been me, there, crying on the bathroom floor. And I'm not sure that I would have had the strength to get up off the bathroom floor, much less out of the relationship.

Sometimes I get caught up in the race to the alter, but I read about her on the bathroom floor and I realized that I'd much rather be here than there. Of course this doesn't change the fact that if I get married I think my mother might shave her head as an offering*...but it helps. I have not read the Secret because I don't think I'd buy in, but E, P, L made me want to take control of my life ... and while I may not buy into the Secret, I do maybe buy into the power of positive thinking because since I've decided to embrace life and thank God that I'm not crying on the bathroom floor things have been good.

Sometimes I think that you need to begin a new year, read a good book and put your mind to good and what follows is So.Much.Fun. Or so we hope. Details will follow I'm sure, but for now, you should all E, P, L.


*There is a story in the book about an Indian girl in her late twenties that gets married. The girl's mother is so thankful that she's finally getting married that she shaves her head as an offering to the Gods.