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Oh, but it wasn't all bad, those few years…
Because God never slams a door in our face without opening a box of Girl Scout Cookies (or however the adage goes), some wonderful stuff did happen in the shadow of all that sorrow. …
To begin with, things started to look up somewhat when I moved out of David's place in early 2002 and found an apartment of my own for the first time in my life.
I was beginning to sense that, even though my life still looked like a multi-vehicle accident on the New Jersey Turnpike during holiday traffic—I was tottering on the brink of becoming a self-governing individual. When I wasn't feeling suicidal about my divorce, or suicidal about my drama with David, I was actually feeling kind of delighted about all the little compartments of time and space that were appearing in my days, during which I could ask myself the radical new question: "What do you want to do, Liz?"
Most of the time (still so troubled from bailing out of my marriage), I didn't even dare to answer the question, but just thrilled privately to its existence. And when I finally started to answer, I did so cautiously. I would only allow myself to express little-baby-step wants. Like:
I want to go to a Yoga class.
I want to leave this party early, so I can go home and read a novel.
I want to buy myself a new pencil box.
Then there would always be that one weird answer, same every time:
I want to learn how to speak Italian.
See how Liz Gilbert's love life is today! Oprah interviews the author of Eat, Pray, Love.
