I Can Go Wherever I Want

“These weeks of spontaneous travel are such a glorious twirl of time, some of the loosest days of my life, running to the train station and buying tickets left and right, finally beginning to flex my freedom for real because it has finally sunk in that I can go wherever I want.” – Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love

I am reading Eat, Pray, Love for the third time. Or maybe the fourth. I’m starting to lose count. I think maybe one of the reasons I find so much comfort in it is the open tone. I think if I met her on the open road, we’d be friends. And it feels like listening to a friend–reading the book. Hearing her experiences and the collective wisdom of those around her (“Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face.” “Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth”). I guess I feel a shared understanding: of restlessness, of heartbreak, of self love. I also imagine Elizabeth Gilbert being a bit like my aunt, who I adore.

Each time I read the book, I read it a little differently. The first time, I read it as a travel memoir. I was entranced by the idea that cities have a shared word, by her descriptions of pizza and pasta and simple Italian meals (which, of course, takes me back to my own self-exploratory jaunt through Italy), by the places and the restlessness.

The second time I read the book, I was struck by the heartache (perhaps because my second read was post-Peter Pan, at a time when I was on my own set of anti-depressants and self-help programs, melting frequently into a little puddle of sadness on my therapist’s floor). I read the book as a internal journey, with the pastas as a backdrop and not the main event.

Each reading was a mirror into my own psyche (though, ah, aren’t all readings of all books something like this for each of us). And this reading is no different. This time I’m focused on her self-recognition and self-defining. Moments like the one above when she has a moment of clarity, much like the one I had earlier this week.

I am self-employed, I realized. I can do anything today.

She has some similar moments…asking herself quietly, “what do you want to do today?” as she moves toward freedom from an old life, instead of asking what her husband or boss or family or any other person wants.

Obviously, there’s a balance there. Not all responsibility is bad (indeed, in owning my business, I still have responsibilities to my clients and work hard to fulfill them, but I am free to do them in my own time and my own way and my own location), but as responsibility shifts and as we learn to be responsible also for our own self-love and health and wellness, responsibility balances with joy. At least for me.

As I move forward into this new way of life, I am able to ask myself like never before: Gigi, what do you want to do today? Certainly, I want to finish those headlines or go to that networking event or balance my books must make that list. But so can aside-from-business sorts of things. I want to plan a big trip for next year. Or I want to take a break and go shoe shopping this afternoon. Or I want to take a long nap or have homemade shrimp and Asiago appetizers for lunch, sitting on the back patio and enjoying the breeze.

Gone are the days of work, work, work, work, pass out from exhaustion and skip your friends evening events. Welcome to a world of work, work, have a carefully prepared and delicious lunch, work, take a break and read something inspiring, work, work, walk to the store and buy a cute top…you get the picture. There’s still work in there, but in a healthy, productive, breaks-are-allowed sort of way.

A testament to fact: it takes hard work and creativity. You may have to be willing to live frugally and make decisions other people think are crazy. But at the end of the day, you can carve out the life you want.

I’m still working on it. But I love where this is going.