It doesn't help with the anticipation though. I want it to be the end of May already, so that I can have my bag packed and have started this adventure. But I still have 52 days until I leave. That is just under 2 months until I leave the comfort of my childhood home and travel across the world to a foreign land.
Right now, Eat Pray Love is on television. All I can say is, are we all clichés? Woman loses herself in a relationship, the relationship ends, she travels the world to find herself?
Well, this is the first time I've actually seen the movie and although there are some similarities between my story and that of Elizabeth Gilbert, we are both very unique as well. It is because each of us, me, Ms Gilbert, you, we all are the star of our own life.
I don't mean that in a selfish way, although I have continually told people that I am going for very selfish reasons. I don't hide the fact that I am doing this to renew my passion for- well for something. It is too easy, (and I hate to generalize but...) especially for women, to lose our individuality when we find our match in life. This, to me, is when relationships become hard and someone ends up wanting out. We think because we found that person with whom we laugh the most, feel the safest, are the most attracted to, everything should be happiness and love. Two "I's" become "we's", and "me" can disappear.
At least, that is what seemed to happen to me. Having found a partner in life, I lost me to we and found myself waiting. Instead of attacking each day with passion, I was waiting for each day to happen, wasting time until he came home and we could go do something together. Waiting for the day I would be done school, all the while finding (however valid) excuses to postpone semester after semester. Waiting for a promotion at work, so that I could contribute more and pay off more bills. Waiting to just live more.
I used to be someone who seized experience as it crossed her path. I used to have such life in me, and although I don't blame my most recent relationship for losing that (in fact, because of him and his support, i have made some major growth in many ways), I do know that the comfort of having someone who loves you and protects you and just plain makes you feel worthwhile can make you complacent.
For me that girl started to disappear ten years ago when I first got sick. It was around my 25th birthday that the digestive issues and muscle pain really started to impact my daily life. Then the skin/gland issues started a few years later, all to culminate in a Laura who was just ready to give up her dreams. During this time I still went out with friends, pursued relationships, went to school and worked. But the last five years were when the most change happened, both positive and negative regarding mental and physical health. I wouldn't be who I am without this past relationship.
Of course, I also wouldn't be going to Nepal if it hadn't ended when it did.
I wouldn't be so desperate to find that girl with the unending dreams and the inability to accept that things might not work out. It wouldn't be so urgent to prove to myself that I am still Laura Jane, unique, strong and capable. Life wouldn't have handed me the answers I needed. I would still be afloat in that fog of complacency.
As I write this, the movie still plays, and I find myself slightly jealous. Oh if only I had the money to take a year. To have the resources to lounge in paradise. It seems like the gatekeeper to happiness is money. To spend 4 months eating in Rome, then 4 living in India, followed by 4 more in Bali would mean 2 big things: first that you need a large amount of money to even consider the trip, second that is an entire year of lost wages. Of course, when a writer embarks on a year of self actualization, it usually also becomes a year of writing their experience.
I don't have that money. I have the generosity of my parents, my older brother, many of my friends, even some professors who have heard of my coming adventure. I have what I save over the next two months, and that is it. Then I am off to live like an actual citizen of Nepal. No fancy resort, no hot showers, in some cases no actual toilet.
But I am excited to do it. To seize the day. To be the Laura that I used to be so proud of.
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