I just finished reading "Committed" and I HAD to come here and write about it. "Committed" is the follow up book to "Eat Pray Love" written by Elizabeth Gilbert. For those of you who aren't familiar with "Eat Pray Love," it's about a recently divorced woman who goes on a year long journey to Italy, India, and Indonesia in an effort to find herself after a drawn out and devastating divorce. Ironically, the first time I read this book, I too was going through a divorce and it spoke to me on a deeply personal level. At the end of the first book Liz met a Brazilian born man and decided to give love another shot, but to never EVER get married again. "Committed" is about what happened when her beloved was deported out of the United States and allowed only to return if they get married. She writes about the history of marriage, her family's history of marriage, her divorce, her fears about getting married again, and what measures she could take to be sure her second try at marriage is the try that sticks forever. It's kind of like a 250 page pep talk to herself where she dissects every aspect of holy matrimony in order to convince herself that it's worth another try. I see it kind of like getting your leg bitten off in a brutal shark attack, in which you barely escape with your life and then being stupid enough to get back in the water again and risk losing the other leg. I love analogies.
Umm...so yeah. Being a divorced person myself you can see why a few minutes after I read the last page I decided to come back to this blog. Originally I wanted this to strictly be an impersonal place for me to write about some vacations, provide some social commentary, yadda yadda yadda, right? But, the truth is I don't know how to write impersonally. And if Elizabeth Gilbert can share all the sticky details of her failed marriage and her journey to recovery and new love then I figure I can put my feelings on the subject out there as well!
Let me say divorce is a nightmare and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I don't think anyone really gets married with the intent to divorce. It's not included on anyone's life plan out of college...get married - check, buy a house - check, get a divorce - check, but sometimes it happens. Liz says that in her research about marriage, statistics show that when societies begin to choose their own partners and marry for love the divorce rate goes UP, UP, UP. Whereas in the olden days when people often had their partners chosen for them and married for money, to strengthen ties between families, etc. those were the marriages that stuck. To marry for love is a gamble and one that usually doesn't end well. Yet over and over again people play the love game. They lose it all and then somehow come back for another round. Like I said earlier, they get back in the water again. What insanity! Sometimes I wonder why the hell would I ever get married again? Yet, secretly I cry at chick flicks and I dream of that elusive happily ever after. I don't want to need love. I don't want to want to get married again. Somewhere deep down I guess I'm holding out the slightest bit of hope that it will happen for me again and that when it does it will be "for real," whatever that entails. I don't trust marriage and I don't trust anyone else not to break my heart. I was certain my first marriage was for real and clearly it was not. So, you can see why I could relate so much to this book. Because I know if/when I do meet someone else special again, I too will face that struggle wondering if I can really gamble on marriage again after losing it all.
Anyway, there are some deep thoughts for you to ponder. I feel fine right now being unmarried. It took me a long time after my divorce to realize that it's truly fine to be single. It doesn't make me a pariah to be unmarried even if I stay that way the rest of my life. Thankfully single women with careers these days are called independent and strong willed and successful rather than spinsters and old maids. 2010 is a fabulous time to be single, yes? And I will leave you just one more thought for tonight. By the way, this thought is something I am 100% certain to be absolutely true and I learned this the very long hard way, first hand and through excruciating heart break. Ready? It is SO much better to be single than with someone who doesn't love you and respect you for the person you truly are. Better to be single than to stay with someone who abuses your love for them by manipulating you and belittling you. Perhaps this fact should be obvious, but it wasn't obvious to me and if there is even the slightest chance that my turning this blog into something personal someone out there who may be staring in the face of divorce or any relationship gone wrong may read this and feel just the slightest glimmer of hope that they too can survive such utter heartbreak and live to tell the tale in a blog, then that makes it all the more worth the sharing.
Oh! And not to ruin the ending for you all, but Liz does marry her sweetheart in the end and they are to this day happily married. Maybe there is hope after all for us marriage skeptics.
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