Sending Light and Love

Last night I went to see Eat Pray Love with some friends. Like a lot of women, I resonated with this book so much when I read it. There's something about Liz Gilbert's honesty about her own psychosis that I find incredibly refreshing. There were a lot of moments when I read it that I thought, "Thank God, someone else in the world is as nuts as I am."

Say what you want about the film--whether or not it captured the book, what it left out, etc.--but what I felt as I watched is was, "This is not bullshit. This woman actually picked up her life and went on this journey, and it was hard as hell. But it was also beautiful and transforming. And in the end, she discovered wholeness."  Sure, it's a romanticization of the book, which is of course a romanticization of her journey, but still, the essence of it all is based in reality. And what I want more than anything is what she found: wholeness.

The moment I am recalling most vividly is when she's at the ashram in India and she confesses how much she misses her 28-year-old yogi lover back in New York. Richard from Texas, never one for sugarcoating the truth, replies in a somewhat annoyed tone, "So miss him. Send him light and love every time you think of him, then drop it."

My eyes well up just thinking about it. It's a beautiful thought--go ahead and miss the person whom you love. Send them every good wish, the love of the universe even, and then...let go. 

So, dear SCL, I do miss you. I miss you with an intensity I didn't know was possible. And rather than trying not to miss you, I will feel the loss and the pain of your absence. And I send you light and love--all good wishes and good thoughts. I wish you happiness and deep, deep joy.

I'm still not sure what it means to let go of that, but I am sure it will come.