Gilbert v Jones: Eat, Pray, Dud

I finished nursing school and I was ready to move on. More than one of my friends suggested I read the divorcee guide book, the book that gives us (meaning women), hope for the future even after divorce: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I hesitated for months, almost a year actually, to read it. I was informed it was about an unfaithful wife who goes on a journey of self discovery. I didn't cheat on my marriage, but I can be accused of heinous crimes. I opened the book and what I found was the story of a self important, self centered woman, who, instead of finding the reality check she needed and coming clean about her misdeeds, got to travel around the world and celebrate her own self pity.

Her words made me pull out scrap paper and keep notes. By the end of it all I just wanted to smack her and scream, "you selfish, horrible woman, you've learned nothing!" I can see how millions of women would desire to have her experience, but are women in this country truly that shallow? Here is my in-depth review.

First of all reading her book was like reading edited excerpts from her personal journal, except they don't make sense and they are elusive. Personally if I was going to air my dirty laundry I would go for full disclosure, but there are some thoughts you should just keep to yourself. In Gilbert's case her edits only make her look like a selfish brat and her husband like some monstrous jerk. If she wanted to build sympathy or a connection with her readers, instead of looking like a pompous witch who's lead a sheltered life, stating exactly what happened would have made her seem more personable.

She lost all credibility and respect from me by violating three of my biggest pet peeves. First, she couldn't stop inserting her political opinion throughout the book. The book is suppose to be about a "journey." I didn't want to hear about her ill founded and totally useless political opinion. Second her absolute lack of understanding of how antidepressants affect the brain, their side effects, and the biological reasons one would need them, plus her irrational fear of them shows she has selective ignorance like most mainstream Americans. At one point in the book I truly questioned whether she had bipolar disorder. Last, everyone knows of my deep respect for service members. Ms Gilbert on the other had has none. On page 61 of the paperback version, I quote :" Ours is an entertainment- seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one. Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to theme parks, to wars..." What the <> is wrong with her!? What kind of person thinks the American people go to war to entertain themselves!? There is nothing entertaining about watching your loved ones pack up for war, not knowing if you'll ever see them again. Shame on Ms Gilbert. She is undeserving of the freedom our service men and women fight for.

Ms Gilbert never showed any self reflection, any remorse, any idea that her actions negatively affected others around her. She lived in her own little ego bubble. She compared her personal suffering to that of the Sicilian people, thought her personal application to the ashram would positively add to it, thought people would refer to her floor scrubbing metaphor as they do Buddha's teachings. One of the biggest things that added to her undaunted self- centeredness was the description of her pious silent self and what people would think of her by taking a vow of silence. She absolutely missed the point of a vow of silence which shows she learned nothing about finding inner peace or about becoming a better person.

The point of her trip, from my understanding, was to heal, to grow, to change, to find out who she truly was and is. I saw none of that. I saw a selfish woman indulge herself in food and language while wallowing in self pity. Then she moved on to prayer. Again learning nothing about self sacrifice, the point of getting closer to God, learning to appreciate all that she has. Last she was offered to learn from a medicine man and yet she learned nothing. Her only redeeming quality was getting a home for a Balinese woman and her children, and yet she some how turned that into self glorification.

So here is what I wrote in my book journal:
"Honestly all I could think about through the majority of the book was: what a self absorbed b****, And get off your political high horse. It must be nice to not do a G-damn thing for a year, but think about yourself. Wonder if she's capable of facing her problems realistically?'

How this book is suppose to relate to me:

April of this year marked two years since my divorce. Truth be told my marriage ended years before that. Not many people know what happened and like I said I am not one to air my dirty laundry in public, but I can say I made some mistakes, some that I feel are pretty unforgivable. A lot of what happened was due to lack of maturity (here I am strictly speaking about myself), and the inability to handle my emotions appropriately. I would like to say I have matured, that I am relatively on my way to handling my emotions, but I really don't know.

I lived back home for almost a year until I got a wild hair and decided to take a job in the middle of nowhere Montana. And thus began the whole idea that I would be experiencing my Eat, Pray, Love.

So am I having an Eat, Pray, Love experience?

I like to think my life is more like Bridgette Jones’s Diary except I don’t have the knot of close knit friends or the love triangle. I have stated instead of death by vodka, Chaka Khan, and wild rabid dogs, it will be: wine, Breaking Benjamin, and a rouge cougar. There are pervy old men where I work, but wearing a short skirt and see-through top is not an option for revenge. Equally ridiculous things happen to me. When I go out Ms Jones and I put an equal amount of effort into getting ready. I never go home with a charming rouge, I go home alone. I also get hit on by scrawny weirdoes and fat men that are older than my father.

I bet if online dating had been an option for Bridge she would have tried it. Most undoubtedly hilarity would have ensued. In my case…well there has been some hilarity but mostly disappointment. At first it was one miserable date after another. People do misrepresent themselves online, why I haven’t the slightest clue. The intent of online dating, at least for me, is to actually meet someone. So if I am actually going to meet someone, which I have met several, why lie about who I am just to attract someone? When they meet me they are going to find out the truth. So I am honest. Not one person I have spoken with or gone on a date with has been honest with me. Some lies were minor like weight or athletic ability; some were bigger like career and age. Others were there just to get lucky, no surprise. I am sure Bridge would have come up with some fantastic fibs about herself, but I certainly can’t. I have a hard enough time talking myself up.

Ms Gilbert took a year off from sex and dating to clear her mind. One of two virtuous things she actually did and one thing we had in common. It was easy enough for me to refrain from dating since I was living at home and after receiving the cold shoulder from my family for a Bridgette-esque escapade in Canada. Moving to Montana I thought meeting a whole different breed of men might revitalize my outlook on love and the future. Unfortunately all the men in Montana have done is made me think: so this is where serial killers are bred. I have been on three first dates up here and several people have tried to set me up. One person actually tried to set me up with the town drunk! That would happen to Bridgette. What I have learned is men in Montana are good at the first date (except the one guy that threw up before we were even served our meal because he was so nervous), but after that first date…well they leave a lot to be desired.

Can you see it now? It’s like a montage in a movie: me sitting at a restaurant asking first date questions as a parade of different types of men sit opposite me answering the questions with the strangest answers. By the end of the montage I am blowing a stray strand of curled hair out of my face while I am gesturing to the bar tender to refill my wine glass, looking utterly exhausted and disappointed. After my last foray into the first date world, which I kept quiet because I thought it held promise, I had an epiphany I don’t think you can call something a relationship if all conversation is conducted via text. Twenty-nine year old man (I am being kind), text only! I learned a very valuable lesson about the text only thing the year before. If they insist on text only, they are not telling you something. I am not sure why I let the most recent streak of text nonsense go on as long as I did, nor why I let him get under my skin, nor why I thought it held promise. We did have a great first date. It’s hard to know whether Bridgette has a vindictive side, I talk big, but I don’t have one, but if she was like me she would know what she would like to do if she had the courage. I would want to write a nasty review on his Match profile and the next time I saw him dump a dark red glass of wine all over him, while smiling sweetly. I keep telling myself he’s not worth the anger, but he’s the straw!

Bridgette did eventually finds happiness with the smart and handsome Mr Darcy. As my luck would have it, I don’t think there is a Mr Darcy for me. In a way I believe I will end up like Ms Havisham from Great Expectations, but instead of being a monument to a lost love and a wedding that never happened, I will be a dusty warning to all who play chicken to ring my doorbell that “happily ever after” does not happen for everyone.

So I will give up on dating altogether. Now Ms Gilbert went to an Ashram to practice yoga, pray, and find inner peace. Unfortunately I have dumped every penny I have into a shack of a house in the middle of nowhere and a new car. So there goes the idea of a yoga retreat. Some of us actually have to work for a living, if you can call what I make “a living”. I would love to do yoga on a regular basis, if it was offered in BFE. It helps me focus and find inner peace. It helps me get closer to God without distraction. It has been very difficult to do that up here. Montana so far has done a really good job of humbling me, of making me struggle, reminding me of things I should have been grateful for when I had them, and of pointing out the virtues I lack. I have taken heavy blows to my ego. I didn’t think I had one! Montana has shown me all the things I am missing in my life.

I have prayed all my life. I have listened to the sermons from my church back home on prayer. The stress of my life up here has caused me to fall heavily on prayer. I find myself wandering over to the hospital’s chapel every night I work to sit there for five minutes and pray. Some nights the stress level and other emotions are so overwhelming I use the prayer time just to try and calm down. I use to go to church on a regular basis. I use to be involved in the church, but somewhere along the way I became very private about my faith and my relationship with God. The group setting just wasn’t for me anymore. Out here in BFE, you go to church; you open yourself up to small town gossip. I managed to become small town gossip without going to church, but that’s a Ms Jones like story for another day.

Since moving to Montana I have managed to pick up my Bible and resume reading on a regular basis. I have also been discussing my faith again, with trusted people. Lately I have been feeling a lot like Job (although God has not put me through the serious rigors of faith testing Job went through, I am not that egotistical). I do not have Job’s patience and I don’t feel like my faith is strong enough to make it through the trials I am facing…or its more like I am not strong enough and I have no faith in man. And this is where everyone might draw the comparison to Ms Gilbert and myself, she breaks down several times and complains about her lack of coping skills.

I will admit, in recent years I have become weak and dependent. I constantly whine about the state of my life, but unlike Ms Gilbert, I can’t run away from it and I am learning to cope with it. I constantly wonder and worry if I am wearing out my family and the few friends I have. I had a family member once tell me you should never lay all your problems on your friends. I have had another family member tell me there are just some things you keep to yourself. Keeping both of these things in mind, I generally tend to keep things bottled up until the pressure explodes in the most inappropriate places.

Maybe I haven’t been writing enough or maybe I need to workout more to clear my mind, or maybe I need a shrink to help me find closure that I never seem to be able to find. At least unlike Ms Gilbert, I can admit I need help and I know its virtues and I am not afraid of its stigma. Perhaps if Ms Gilbert sought professional help and respected its virtues instead of being a snob she might have learned something from her experience. On principal I refuse to read her book about her new life. I live in reality, if I lived in Ms Gilbert’s privileged world the following would happen:

Someone will buy my house for $65,000, no questions asked, as is, that way I have plenty of money to move to Helena and be able to pay down a little debt. The move to Helena will go well and I adjust well. I find a place I can have both my dogs at an affordable cost.

I know that is not as glorious as living for four months in Italy eating fabulous food and learning to speak the language. Not as reverent to God as spending months meditating, or as awe inspiring as studying under a Balinese medicine man. However, it is truly what I would want to happen. I wrote that down, along with some other things, prayed about it, and placed it in my Bible. In my line of work I can’t take a vow of silence, so I just write down my prayers to be pious, if that counts.

Meditating became a cathartic release for Ms Gilbert although she turned into self- glorification. Bridgette used flirt tactics, making dinner for her friends, and alcohol. Although Ms Jones’ methods sound like fun and I have certainly done them, it’s not cathartic for me. I write. And I suppose sharing my thoughts help. And kickboxing. Unfortunately Ms Gilbert gets paid for sharing her thoughts. I do not and hardly anyone reads what I have to say, but if anyone reads this they will see that the Eat, Pray, Love experience is only happens to the privileged. The rest of us are forced to take crappy jobs in the middle of nowhere, forced to buy houses only insane people would live in, struggle to make ends meet, go on dates with immature men and give up on dating, rely on others for help always wondering when they are going to leave you and always waiting for the next catastrophe.   

For Dad

The Military Child

She was an intelligent child. Only seven years old and acted beyond her age. She had become protective-mother to her younger siblings out of necessity, but none of the three of them were blind to what went on around them, and around the world. Their father would not allow ignorance. They knew what was happening in that far off dusty place, but only she, at the age of seven, knew what it meant for her single parent family.

            She had watched he news that night with her father. No discussion of events had taken place at the dinner table later. With her sister, she went to their shared bedroom to play. The over head light seemed unnaturally bright that night. The blue walls of the bedroom, bordered with balloons and clouds, seemed to blanch out. The blue shag carpet took on a sickly color. She sat on her bed. The iris patterned comforter was soft under her hands.

“Rebecca, go play with your brother, I need to talk to Jennifer,” their father said, suddenly at their bedroom door. Rebecca was delighted. Jenny was in trouble! She ran to find their brother.

            Jennifer sat frozen on her bed. She couldn’t think of what she had done wrong. She stared at her father. He stood in the doorway. Hair black, eyes blue, straight, and square as most military men, most Army men are. He wore a long sleeve polo shirt: Red, black, and yellow. His standard 501’s and tennis shoes. He shut the door and crossed the room.

            This is not good, thought Jennifer. With the pattern of what had gone on in her young life what was going to be said would not surprise her.

“Jennifer, what do you think is happening in the Middle East right now?” her father asked her. He kneeled on the floor in front of her and looked straight into her eyes.

She swallowed. “War,” she said weakly. She had watched the news clips of US aircraft bombing a place called Kuwait.

“Yes, I have volunteered to go,” her father stated flatly.

She looked down. “When will you go?” she asked.

“I am not sure. I may not go at all.”

She knew they would want him. Her dad was the perfect military, perfect Army, specimen. Fluent in Arabic, weapons expert, desert tactics expert…of course he would go.

“What about us?” her voice quivered. As much as she tried to stop it, she knew she would cry. Only once though.

“Your grandmother will take care of you while I am gone. But you know your duty. You are to take care of Rebecca and Matthew. You are the oldest. It is your job to watch over them and take care of them until I come back.”

She was not stupid. War was violent and soldiers died.

“What if you don’t?” she asked as tears slid down her cheeks. There would be no tears in front of Rebecca and Matthew. She would have her brave face on. The brave face all military children eventually learn to adopt. She adopted it sooner because of her life circumstances.

“Your grandmother and Aunt Dedra will take care of you. My things will be divided evenly among the three of you.”

She sat silently crying.

“Can you do this for me Jennifer?”

“Yes daddy” she cried.

He hugged her to him. She cried on the red shoulder of his shirt, until it was time to tell Rebecca and Matthew.

            He did not go to war that time, but many years later when the little girl was a young woman of twenty-three her father announced he had official orders to be sent to the new war in the Middle East. At the age of forty-eight her father would finally get the chance for war he had longed for. He did not separate the three children this time, but sat them down together.

“All assets are to be divided equally among the three of you should I not return,” he lectured. He sat on an office chair in the basement, while the three children, no longer children sat on the stairs. Their father had worked everything out perfectly. He began to detail what went to whom and how his funeral should go. Jennifer listened and watched her brother and sister cry. She would not. It had been her duty at seven to take care of them and it was still her duty at twenty-three. She would cry later, in the dead of night, quietly into her pillow, so her husband would not hear. Happy Birthday to her.

            In April of that year, she said good-bye to her father after he had come to visit her. She stood in the airport and cried. She watched her father in his white tee-shirt and jeans walk through the crowd at the airport. She prayed it would not be the last time she saw her only parent.

            Her father’s tour that year would not be his last. Again at the age of fifty her father deployed. This time she would have to stay strong for not only her siblings, but her new step-mother as well. Sharon was new to military life. She did not like to hear stories of war, especially when they included Jennifer’s father in less than safe conditions. Through it all Jennifer remained strong in front of her family, as a good military daughter must.

            There is something to be said about the strength of the military child. While most ask the parents how they can bare to be away from their children, few ask how the child bares being away from the parent. Children are resilient creatures. They have far more mental strength than they are given credit for. The military child is deeply underestimated. There may not be a genetic factor that make the military child stronger, but there is a born-in knowledge of what their parent does and because of that, the sense of pride in their military parents, their sense of duty is stronger than that of an average child. It is that strength, duty, and honor that makes the military child stand out above the rest. They may cry for their deployed parent and miss them deeply, but they know what their mothers and fathers do is for the good of us all. 

My Father

            Most of all that I know and love about the military comes from my father. May father was born for the Army. It is actually in our blood. My family has a long history of military service in this country starting with the Revolutionary War. While the family history draws me in, it was mostly my father.

            We were raised in a strict military fashion. “Yes, sir!” “No, sir!” “Yes, ma’am” “No, ma’am” “Sit up straight, square your shoulders!” “Speak when spoken to.” Dad had us doing push-ups for punishment and would sing Army cadences to us during our school road races. But again those are not the things that draw me to the military.

            It was the way my dad smelled. He had a distinct military, clean cut smell. It was in his crisply ironed uniforms, in his brightly polished boots, in his well used manuals. It was the way the post smelled. Of shoe polish, dust, aged wood, metal, paper, gun powder, soap, and sweat. It was the sound of my dad’s combat boots on the pavement, in the dirt, and on the wooden floors of the post buildings. It was the sound of his uniform as he sat down when he got home from duty and told us stories.

            Most of all it was Dad’s stories and the lessons he taught that could only come from the military life. Dad would spend hours telling us his stories. We would listen, captivated. We imagined our dad and his faceless friends playing war games in the forests of Germany, crawling through the jungles of Panama, and more recently of tea time with Turkish contractors in Iraq. Dad’s stories are better than any book I have ever read. We would devote entire evenings and family gatherings to listening to dad’s stories. Even our friends know and retell his stories. But what they all missed out on were his lessons, some of the most important that I have ever learned.

            Through my military father I have learned the value of life, of family, of devotion, duty, honor, and leadership. With these lessons came practical skills: survival in the woods, map reading and directional awareness, self defense, critical thinking, and most importantly which bugs were ok to eat to gross out the boys at school. The best lesson, though, were those about leadership and taking initiative.

            A good leader leads by example. My father leads a strong Christian life. A good leader never asks his troops to do something he wouldn’t do himself. My father has never been above hard work. His motto: do it right the first time. A good leader is organized. Amid the chaos my father does follow the seven P’s: proper pre-planning prevents piss poor performance. A good leader never lets his troops down. When my dad was strapped for cash and we had no food in the house, my siblings and I never knew it. There was always a meal on the table even if it was just an MRE, which we thought was a treat! Most importantly, a good leader inspires his troops to become great leaders. I cannot say for sure yet if I am a leader and if I am, I am half as good as my father. What I can say is my father’s military life and style has inspired me to many things in my life and has given me the courage to lead a good life. Thank you Dad.