I've been meaning to buy Eat Pray Love but everytime I go to Bookpoint , I'm getting the Writer's Digest that is 6 months old ( so that I can have it at half price 300 kshs) that everytime I open and see 750 price tag on it I cringe. But I was walking and someone was selling it in the street. The cover is faded and it has no markings on it , which makes me think it was bought before the movie was released ... I was meant to have it. If anyone out there has a book that used to belong to me , it has all sorts of notes and goofy things I wrote.
Depression and Loneliness , has a very profound presence in our lives , so when I read this chapter from the book , I felt so much better (strangely) So to all of you out there having the blues or the 'mean reds' , it is perfectly normal because with change comes transition and with that comes pain ...here is an excerpt from the book :
Eat Pray Love , chapter 16
Depression and loneliness track me down after about 10 days in Italy. I am walking through the Villa Borghese one evening after a happy day spent at school , and the sun is setting gold over St.Peter's Basilica . I am feeling contented in this romantic scene , even if I am all by myself , while everyone else in the park is either fondling a lover or playing with a laughing child. But I stop to lean against a balustrade and watch the sunset , and I get to thinking a little too much , and then my thinking turns into brooding , and that's when they catch up with me.
They come upon me all silent and menacing like Pinkerton Detectives , and they flank me - Depression on my left , Loneliness on my right. They don't need to show me their badges. I know these guys very well. We've been playing cat and mouse for years now. Though I admit that I'm surprised to meet them in this elegant Italian garden at dusk. This is no place they belong .
I say to them , " How did you find me here? Who told you I had come to Rome?"
Depression, always the wise guy says , " What - you're not happy to see us?"
"Go away ," I tell him.
Loneliness, the more sensitive cop says , "I'm sorry , ma'am . But I might have to tail you the whole time you're travelling. It's my assignment."
"I'd really rather that you didn't , " I tell him , and he shrugs almost unapolegetically , but only moves closer.
Then they frisk me. They empty my pockets of any joy I had been carrying there . Depression even confiscates my identity , but he always does that.
Then Loneliness starts interrogating me , which I dread because it always goes on for hours . He's polite but relentless, and he always trips me up eventually. He asks if I have any reason to be happy that I know of. He asks why I am by myself tonight , yet again. He asks (though we've been through this line of questioning hundreds of times already) why I can't keep a relationship going, why I ruined my marriage , why I messed things up with David , why I messed up with every man I've ever been with. He asks me where I was the night I turned thirty, and why things have gone so sour since then. He asks why I can't get my act together,and why I'm not at home living in a nice house and raising nice children like any respectable woman my age should be. He asks why , exactly , I think I deserve a vacation in Rome when I've made such a rubble of my life. He asks me why I think that running away to Italy like a college kid will make me happy. He asks where I think I'll end up in my old age , if I keep living this way.
I walk back home , hoping to shake them, but they keep following me , these two goons. Depression has a firm hand on my shoulder and Loneliness harangues me with his interrogation. I don't even bother eating dinner ; I don't want them watching me . I don't want to let them up the stairs to my apartment, either, but I know Depression , and he's got a billy club , so there's no stopping him from coming in if he decides that he wants to.
"It's not fair for you to come here," I tell Depression. "I paid you off already . I served my time back In New York."
But he just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favourite chair , puts his feet on my table and lights a cigar, filing the place with his awful smoke. Loneliness watches and sighs, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over himself , fully dressed, shoes and all .
He's going to make me sleep with him again tonight , I just know it.
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