Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It (13 page)

—

Sondra Imperati

T
he first time I started
Eat Pray Love
I ended up putting it back on the bookshelf. Liz was in India at the ashram. She had just met Richard and been nicknamed Groceries.

Yes, I put it down.

Richard forced Liz to take a really hard look at herself. If I kept reading, I realized I might have to do the same. At that time, I couldn't handle what
Eat Pray Love
represented, those messages of honoring your truth and embracing fear. I was stuck in my life, moments away from my own bathroom breakdown. I just couldn't admit it.

To the outside world, my life looked pretty good. I had a handsome husband, a beautiful home and fancy cars. My career was smoking hot. My husband and I acted happy, so of course others thought we were.

Then there's what goes on behind closed doors.

For many reasons, I couldn't trust my husband. And he resented that I was a workaholic who didn't care for myself. The Italy part of
Eat Pray Love
had resonated with me and not just because I was Italian. I also had the “eat” aspect down pat. In fact, I was morbidly obese. Still, as crazy as it sounds, most of the time we were friends and enjoyed each other's company. We tried to love and support each other the best we could. In the end, though, we became casually indifferent.

Even more than before, food and work were now my coping mechanisms. I relied on them to distract me from the pain, shame and loneliness I was feeling, when in reality I was slowly killing myself, one solitary binge at a time. This became crystal clear when, in an overdue visit to my doctor, the wake-up call of high blood pressure sounded.

I had to take back my health.

I began keeping a journal and started to understand my triggers for emotional eating. I read books and learned to eat clean. I exercised at home for fifteen minutes each day. Then thirty minutes, then an hour. I worked with a trainer in my house, then graduated to a gym with classes and trainers. And very slowly I started to like this woman who woke up at five a.m. to care for herself.

It was around this time Liz came back into my life, in the form of Julia Roberts.

My husband bought me the DVD of
Eat Pray Love
as a present, and we watched it together. At the end of the movie, I excitedly asked him what he thought of it.

He replied that he hated it; that Liz was selfish to leave her husband.

I didn't say a word. I went upstairs, dusted off my copy of the
book, and this time I stayed up all night reading it cover to cover. I couldn't put it down. I was so moved by Liz's courage to live her truth and tell her story.

As I lost more weight, I started to unearth other hidden layers of myself. I pursued dreams I never thought I could achieve. I took a flight lesson, dabbled in tennis and heated yoga. I gained some self-respect. And somewhere along this journey of my eighty-pound weight loss and mission of self-discovery, I encountered “the soul mate” who would break me open.

It was a deliberate, calculated seduction on his part, and while nothing ever happened physically, I'm sorry to admit I was an eager participant. I was in a dying marriage, and my “soul mate” taught me it was okay to show vulnerability and ask for help. He stimulated a thirst for knowledge and learning that I had never experienced before. The highs were higher than I had ever known. The lows brought a despair I could never have fathomed. Liz was right. It couldn't and didn't last.

During this time, I came to realize my marriage was truly over. After twenty years together, I initiated the divorce, sold the house and left my job all at the same time. It's no wonder that when I finally hit the bathroom floor I hit it hard.

I lost twenty more pounds because I stopped eating and instead cried constantly. I took to my bed in my new apartment and stared at the ceiling most days, desperately praying to God for help and protection. I felt more alone and exposed than I ever had in my life.

When I finally managed to venture out into the world again, I was an unrecognizable, emotional wreck. My faithful friend Colleen said it best: “Sondra, your eyes are dead.”

At breakfast one morning she told me, “You've left your
marriage, your home, your job—most people drink, drug or sex their way through any one of these events. You're experiencing all of them at the same time and are doing none of that. You need to go to the doctor. I'll go with you. Take something to help yourself.”

The next day I made an appointment with my gynecologist. He had been with me through three miscarriages, and I thought he would be more understanding than my general practitioner.

I told him everything and asked for something to take the edge off.

He hesitantly offered, “I could put you on Paxil.”

“Paxil?” I muttered.

He moved closer and said, “Sondra, I'm really sorry for all you are going through. You're going to be okay. Get your ass back to the gym for forty minutes a day. Start eating. Trust me.”

I took his advice. I went home and changed. After sitting in the parking lot for about an hour, I went into the gym. I gingerly stepped on the elliptical. After forty minutes I had to admit I felt a little better.

I kept going back to the gym.

I began to eat again.

My prayers became more hopeful.

Slowly, I was learning to love and accept myself. I had no choice.

Since I was a little girl, I've listened to music and I loved to sing, be it in musicals, choirs or along with the radio in the car. I appreciate the melodies, but as an avid reader fascinated by all types of language, what I really connect with are the lyrics.

I decided I needed to reignite my passion in a new way. I
loved listening to the gospel choir during Mass and feeling the music inside myself. I longed to join the choir but was too afraid to go on my own.

One day, not long after I came to that realization, my path crossed with Mary Lou, a former colleague and my dear friend. As we were catching up, I learned she was a gospel singer at my church. I told Mary Lou I wanted to sing in the choir but that fear was stopping me. She just looked at me and said, “You're coming with me.” Without hesitation, I followed her.

That very night, I met Michael for the first time. My Brazilian turned out to be a divorced Irish/German American with three children and a grandson on the way!

•   •   •

I
grew up an only child and dreamed of having a family. When all my pregnancies ended in miscarriages, I was both devastated and oddly relieved. Oddly relieved, because it turns out I was terrified at the prospect of having children. I realize now that those fears were directly tied to my doubts about my marriage. If those babies had been born, I never would have left.

My dream of a family did end up coming true—just not in the way I had imagined as a child. I love Michael's family like they are my own: his son Matthew and daughter-in-law Haylee, his beautiful grandson, MJ, and his daughter, Stephanie, who sang in the church choir and had been helping to play matchmaker behind the scenes, unbeknownst to me.

Michael loves wine and is a gourmet cook. He also enjoys music, and we take the time to appreciate it together as often as we can.

Our shared faith and love for God and our church is an important bond that strengthens us as individuals and partners. Sometimes I watch Michael pray, and in those quiet moments I could not feel closer to him and to God.

And then there's love. I have never experienced this type of genuine, unconditional acceptance from a man. I'm learning that truth, honesty and communication—even when it's hard—are cornerstones to enduring love, intimacy, passion and connection.

I believe things happen for a reason. Michael encourages me to keep writing even when I'm afraid—something Liz also does, on Facebook and in her Magic Lessons podcast series. I listened—and I got to work.

—

Elizabeth Duffy

I
was twenty-three years old and two years sober the first time I read the book that would change my life.

I had been abusing substances since the age of twelve. Being intoxicated for the better part of your formative years is not a great way to learn about who you really are and what you want out of life. But I was making progress. I finished college and was starting to earn back my family's trust. And I was detoxing off my final vice—a five-year-long destructive relationship with my codependent savior.

The codependent and the addict—what a horror story. I felt a certain loyalty to him because he had stayed with me during my darkest hours. How could I repay that by getting sober and just walking away?

My friends lovingly reminded me that I needed time and distance away from him; I needed to figure out who I was on my
own. If I did the work and still felt we should be together, then fine, get back together. But not before.

The “work” turned out to be a long road, and breaking away from that relationship was just the start of my journey. I never picked up a substance again, but I kept picking up men who I thought could save me. My sense of my self-worth was completely lacking, and so I tumbled through one terrible relationship after another. That, it turns out, was the crux of all my issues, the reason I drank and numbed. I didn't know how to stand on my own.

I bought
Eat Pray Love
at Target. I remember seeing the cover and thinking how beautiful it was—love at first sight. And with each page I read, I felt Elizabeth Gilbert was uncovering parts of myself that I had been scared to see. She refused to deny her truth, and that inspired me and filled me with hope. I realized that it was time for me to finally cross the street and walk in the sunshine. I owed it to myself and no one else.

I began to make plans to move to Thailand and became certified to teach English as a second language. It was June, and by September I would be financially stable enough to go. But as someone once said, “We make plans and God laughs.” In July, I was contacted by a potential employer with the offer of my dream job—to work for the same drug and alcohol rehabilitation center I had been treated at. Conflicted, I called my father. He had been very supportive of my move to Thailand and was excited for me to take this step. As I spoke to him about the offer, though, he became quiet. Then he responded with words I didn't expect. “Elizabeth, I know you wanted to go to Thailand to work. But if you take this job, in some time you will be
able to go to Thailand on vacation.” I took the job and put Thailand on hold.

I will never be able to truly convey how much that job did for me. Being around addicts in their first days of sobriety gave me a whole new appreciation for my own recovery. I realized how incredibly lucky I was. My once shameful past was now a story of inspiration for young people who were able to say, “If she can do it, maybe I can.” I felt fulfilled, proud of the work I did and the impact I was able to have. Yet my wanderlust was always tugging at my soul; I still dreamed of Thailand.

I was also repeating my most destructive pattern.

I said yes to a marriage proposal. I was twenty-seven now, surrounded by friends who were getting married. Even though I felt myself fading, I stayed in the relationship and lived his dream for a few months, believing that I owed him this in exchange for the ring he gave me and the life he promised. I would wake up in cold sweats in the middle of the night. Something was horribly wrong. I had the perfect guy but was desperately unhappy.

No longer being able to deny my truth, I reread
Eat Pray Love
and found myself again through Elizabeth's words. “Never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.” I gave back the ring.

It is still astonishing to me how, at the exact second we stop trying to make something fit, room opens up for what was meant to be there all along. For me, this came in the form of an ultramarathon in Egypt. By participating in this race, I would be able to travel while also raising money for the treatment center where I worked. I completely committed myself. The training schedule
was grueling, not allowing me time for anything besides work and running. And it was through this training that I finally broke my habit of jumping from relationship to relationship. I was running, but for the first time I wasn't running away from anything. I was running to find myself.

During the race, I met many wonderful people from all over the world. We bonded in exhaustion and pain. A British man in particular was there filming a documentary on a group of Aussies who were running the race to raise awareness for diabetes. I had no intention of trying to meet a man in the Sahara—especially since we were all peeing in the sand, unshowered, and wearing the same clothes 24/7. Yet William kept coming over and initiating conversations.

At the end of the week, back at our hotel in Cairo, we all changed into clean clothes and ate a final meal together. I was on such a high, surrounded by new friends, proud of my achievement and feeling a newfound gratitude for soap. I had also never been so tired in my life, but I stayed up all night in the lobby with William. We talked about the lives we were returning to—mine in Florida and his in New Zealand. We exchanged information so we could keep in touch. There was something special about him, but I didn't kid myself that he would become anything more than a great pen pal. At four a.m., he helped me carry my bags to the taxi and we hugged. As I got into the car, I was caught off guard by a wave of sadness when I realized I would probably never see him again. Then I did my best to shake it off and fell asleep. I returned to Florida, and life carried on.

Much to my surprise, William wrote me. We exchanged daily e-mails, and he became one of my dearest friends. We would tell each other about our days on the opposite sides of
the world, always keeping it light and casual, with zero expectations.

One day I opened an e-mail from him. Do you want to be my date to my friend's wedding next month? Sure! I responded without hesitation and asked where it was. Thailand, he said. Thailand! I said yes and finally made it to the destination of my dreams. Almost three years later, William is my best friend and the love of my life. I know I would never have met him if I hadn't done the work and learned how to stand (and run) on my own.

As Elizabeth wrote, I made space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet-to-come surprises. I'm so grateful that
Eat Pray Love
made me do it.