Long Book Review

I read Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage last fall, and really appreciated the read. She reference Eat Pray Love once or twice, but I never had any interest at all in reading it.  Mostly because I try to be a prudish mormon girl and didn't have any desire to read the last third, the love section.  But then the movie came out, and I knew eventually I would watch the movie, so I wanted to experience the plot in Elizabeth Gilbert's voice not Julia Roberts.
Now that I have read the book, I will say I throughly enjoyed the book.  But in all honestly I can not recommend the book to anyone, because the third section of the book. Most of the book is perfectly fine, but there was a few paragraphs/pages that I skipped because honestly I don't care.
But the rest of the book, was perfect for me, a read I needed.  During Eat, she goes through a minor history of her divorce and the depression she experienced through it.  Oh I needed that section.  The MBA was quickly wearing on me, too many classes this semester (one extra), it wasn't even cold, it wasn't even dark, and I wasn't even experiencing the hormonal drop of weaning my young, but I was already starting to sit on the couch and stare at the wall.  I occasionally wondered will my children survive on hot dogs and eggs for dinner all winter long.  Oh goodness winter hasn't even started I should still be happy.  I told my husband I think I'm getting depressed.  His response was simple just like him, "Don't"  My first thought was you don't understand, you aren't like me, you aren't... whatever the emotion was running through my brain.  But then I remembered he did, he does, he's not me, but he doesn't complicate things like me.  So I stopped, I didn't just like he said.  If I've picked myself up by the heals before, what was stopping me now?  Because it came quicker, because it came in a different season, because why.. so I did.  I got up, I painfully cooked dinner, I painfully cleaned the house, I painfully interacted with my kids, I painfully didn't yell at my kids or husband, I not so painfully got back where I should be with my religious devotion and amazing things happened.  All of the sudden things weren't so painful, I wasn't pretending, and although there was painful parts of life I was more than enduring.  Not to say everyone's experience is the same as mine, or the same circumstances as mine, or the same results.  Just this is my story.  In the word's of Gilbert's Texan friend, this isn't my first rodeo.  So just like Brent told me don't, I know how to tame the bull if I'm willing to put in the effort.
The next section was pray were she goes and studies yoga in India.  Now I haven't put anything into practice yet, but boy did I need the section.  I need to start mediating again, I need to continue to exercise, the summer got a little busy.  Did I mention I need to mediate?  The main reason I have a second child was because I was mediating before bed most nights.  I needed that grounding, that solace, that strength to heal my body from the emotional trauma of childbirth.  Really it got me relaxed, and at peace, and then the pregnancy hit, which was anything but mediating, then a colic infant came which made the pregnancy not look so bad.  If you count practicing for Lamaze I did mediate while pregnant, but come one, my life needs some grounding, some solace some, these are my thoughts, emotions, I can take control.  I should be in control, not the elements.
And overall my overriding thought was thank goodness, I did not marry a man who wanted to "fix me", fix my problems, solve my problems.  I never got the impression while we were friends or dating that he wanted to solve all my problems and I think that would have been an immediate red flag in my life.  But once we got married, when I jumped into one of my rodeos, (lets just say the adversary wasn't so pleased with my constant church attendance and other such things). I was feeling the world tower over me, and I wondered why isn't my husband saving me?  Why isn't he fixing me?  Why isn't he making me better?  When I clearly got the thought, it isn't your husband's job to fix you.  There is only one person in the history of the world who job it is to be the Savior.  And that was one of the best things that happened in my marriage.  But I often feel so blessed that my husband didn't try to help me.  Not that I think that people who try to step in and help are wrong, its just people can only show you the water they can't make you drink. I'm grateful I didn't marry a man that tries to pry my mouth open and pour water in. He actually told me before we ever date that he is not that type of person.
Anyway, more than half of the third section was too, more mediation conversation and such. But I started to get bored, like I do in all memoirs, they just don't end as quickly and neatly as fiction they drag.  But I need to finish, to be accomplished so I did.