November 12, 2012

Life Lessons from one, Liz Gilbert.

Tonight, I was part of a conversation. One that involved the breaking point of a relationship. Why it broke. How it broke. Who broke it? When was it going to get fixed? It was a quick conversation, one that didn't exceed five minutes. The speaker made a comment that I couldn't put in the back of my mind. She said, "It sucks. Being alone sucks. But I'm okay." My heart went and goes out to her. The breaking point is rough... however, I immediately wandered to Liz Gilbert, one of my favorite writers. She knows about loneliness... understatement of the century! And though I think often times it was self-inflicted, it all made her who she wanted to be.

“When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience."

I've been thinking about that, too--who I want to be.
What is my coming-of-age story? Do I even have one? When am I going to be brave enough to write it? Who'll want to read it?

I remembered this piece from Eat. Pray. Love. and then I remembered that I'm okay. We all are. It is a noble thing to navigate around lonely. It helps us find ourselves. Finding yourself... a cliche we all need to invest in.

We need to be lonely, and we need to be lost.
How can we expect another person to find us when we can't tell them what they're looking for? Better yet, how can someone else find a person who's not alive yet?
And isn't that the point? Doesn't finding ourselves make us feel alive?

Did I take this idea too far, or are you understanding?
Maybe we'll revisit this topic at a later date.

3 comments:

  1. oh so beautifully stated. and exactly what i've been thinking of late.

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  2. Yes. I agree with you. Even when you're married and HAVE someone...I can understand, really.

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  3. I love this. Beautifully said and perfectly captured. What a wonderful way to look at it.

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i like words. and you. write me a few?