Eat, Pray, Love

I am currently reading the book Eat,Pray, Love . It is really helping me discover who I am, what I want to do with my life, and how to enjoy pleasures without feeling guilty. Yesterday as I sat down to write an email to my friend Adam I suddenly felt free to express my feelings. Which is something I have been struggling with lately, simply because I have been feeling disconnected from the divine and have found it difficult to reconnect. Well I feel I need to rephrase that statement, I have been feeling disconnected from my Catholic Faith but yet I still feel close to the divine maybe not as close as I was say when I was 16 but still very close.

This fall Adam will be a Junior at Seattle University just like me. He is a very nice person. And although he doesn't know this he really helped me grow during my first two years at Seattle University. When I first met him I was obsessed with giving everyone hugs and couldn't really understand why anyone wouldn't want a hug but then I met Adam and he told me he only saved his hugs for special occassions. I tried hard to respect his personal views about hugs. But honestly it sounded silly to me, however, after a while I realized that this was his personal preference and that there wasn't anything I could do about it. So I accepted him and his preference and tried to stop asking him for hugs (but continued to give everyone else hugs!!)

As I look back to times where I needed a hug, while my brother was upset with me therefore making me depressed, having a misunderstanding with my roomate causing stress as well, when I fell for a boy who I had no business falling for, when my grandmother was very ill, these were times where I really needed a hug. And for some reason without an explanation I'm sure Adam had given me a hug during a couple of these times. And It was true what he said, when I give someone a hug I want it to mean something...or something to that affect. And in all honesty it did mean a lot to me. It meant that he was a good friend even though we didn't see eye to eye about hugs. (And yes I know how silly this sounds, but hey I'm a huggy person and hugs mean a lot to me!!) So anyways, I learned that its okay for someone to "reserve" their hugs (or other important gifts, as I see them) for special occassions and that it was also okay for me to hug everyone who liked my daily hugs. I learned to balance between those who were "saving" their hugs and those who wanted hugs. So now if someone doesn't want hugs its a lot easier for me to understand that it doesn't mean they don't feel comfortable around you or that they don't like you as a friend, it just means they prefer not to give you a hug at this particular point in time. So to me BALANCE is key. And that is what Eat, Pray, Love is all about.

Liz, the author and main character in the book, goes on a journey to find balance in her life. And I too am on a journey to find balance in my life. While I wrote to Adam I told him about my ambitions and goals, although they are a little silly I really want to accomplish them. I told him that I wanted to travel the world and teach English to students. And the most important thing I told him was that "I have just decided that I will be much happier if I stop worrying so much about what is wrong(or what needs to change) in this world and focus more on what is good. By traveling and focusing on the good and maybe writing about it I can share my energy and love for this world with others and then maybe they can pass on that love to someone else and then the cycle will begin, simply by doing what I love! "
But now as I read this I feel a little egotistical, I mean why shouldn't I try to change things in this world. Why should I simply be happy with the good and not do anything about the bad, oh man...
Life is filled with mysterious dilemnas. I want to help shape the world but maybe I can travel first and then set out to change the world, maybe?? I really don't know...

But the good thing is I still have time. And I have great friends who will help me on my life joureny. Guide me, pray for me,inspire me. Yes, I have time and good friends who will help me find Balance in this life. Friends who are different than me and that want and need different things. I will not worry for now. I will continue to search for hapiness and balance and when I find it I'll let everyone know how I found it (Which I think is impossible to find, but maybe, keep your fingers crossed and pray that I find it!!)

This is all for now but maybe soon I'll write more about how I've been changing this summer ;)