Eat, Pray, and Love

I have watched this film three times since it came out. Each time was a different experience for me. The first time I watched it, I felt disappointed. I remembered saying that there were a lot of problems in the world like hunger, climate change, war, and violence, instead the movie talked about a midlife crisis and divorce. I was in my early 20s at that time and of course, did not understand what midlife crisis and divorce meant. At that first time, I did not totally enjoy it but I did love the idea. I was a flight attendant then and decided to do the same thing, go to three countries that start with the letter I and do the exact same thing, Eat, Pray, and Love. I did my own version of it, I was infatuated with another crew member in Milan, so I guess that was the Love part, then in India, I did the same thing as per the movie, I prayed in the temples, so that covered the Pray part. And lastly, in Indonesia, we were stuck in the hotel and could not roam around so, my flying partner and I just stayed at the hotel and decided to eat our hearts out. It was fun. I was so happy that I get to experience my own Eat, Pray, and Love. It felt like I accomplished something, other than being young and naive.

The second time I watched this film, I was already curious about life in my late 20s. I was no longer a flight attendant but instead, I had a stable job. I had some ideas about divorce and midlife crises. This time when I watched it, I understood the film. It was about searching for oneself and love. Suddenly the issues that I had in my mind about the world crisis did not matter much. I enjoyed the portrayal of Julia Roberts and was so proud of how she represented women of our time then. We had these ideas that if we were married, with a house and a good job then that’s it! That’s life and we should be happy. But what if we were not happy? It was an excellent and intriguing question. What should we do then? Then I realized how brave the character of Julia Roberts was, to actually admit that and decide to do something about it. The courage of admitting it was already amazing but then it got even bigger when she decided to do something about it, which was to leave her life as she knew it. She chose self-discovery, and now, in my opinion, that’s brave at all levels of bravery.

I watched the movie recently for the third time. This time, I am in my early 30s, I quit my stable job and moved to Turkey. I realized that the movie talked about so much more. It was not just about self-discovery and love, it was also about balance and passion in life. I guessed at this time, I related more to the movie than the first two times that I had watched it. I am also in my self-discovery stage and I know I still have so much more to learn, discover and experience. I have no idea why I watched the movie for the third time. It was just a hunch at that time, and when I did, I cried and I was touched from the beginning until the end when the character decided on her favorite word in Italian which meant “to cross over”. I realized that everything she went through from the very beginning of her life, through her divorce, through deciding to live in Italy and learn the language, through meeting people in India and hearing their stories, and finally ending up in Bali to help that family and meeting the love of her life. It was all meant to be connected so she can finally cross over to the next chapter of her life. If one thing didn’t happen, there’s a chance she would not even end up there and that would be a different story. But that was how I got so deeply touched. Every choice we make leads to another. We learn we move on and then we can choose whether we can live or just let life happen to us and not be present.

I guess I just wanted to thank this movie for all the messages it shared with the world, and with me. This is our life, we can choose however we live it. We can choose to see the good in it or the bad and choose which one to focus on and be more grateful with. Are we happy? If we are, are we grateful? If we are not, what will we do about it? So what’s your answer? Mine is, definitely Eat, Pray, and Love and I want to add, Live and being Grateful for each moment.