Eat, Pray, Love

I'm thinking about the TV show The Biggest Loser, and how moved the contestants get when they pass the 400 pound or 300 pound mark and fine themselves in another realm of their goals. They're so proud, they cry tears of sheer joy and astonishment. (Seriously, the transformations, even at this point of the show, have been nothing short of amazing.)

I have passed the 500 day mark and I am officially in the 400s, (and almost in the 48os!) which doesn't seem so far from the 300s which doesn't seem so far from a year. As encouraging as this should be, I find that that I am even more frustrated with the process, whispering "Hurry up!" to myself all the time. When friends tell me how good my teeth look, I can only see what's still wrong instead of being proud of what's going right, and I feel ever-bound by this girded mortal coil.

I'm sure author Elizabeth Gilbert would be tickled to know that I use her book, Eat, Pray Love like *ahem* the Bible. Whenever I'm feeling low, or needing some kind of divine intervention, I randomly open up to a page, and invariably the words apply to whatever situation I'm in, make me breathe easier and simply feel much better.

Opening the book this morning, I flipped through the pages, but the place where my bookmark had been, came flying out at me. I had placed it there the last time I had done this and was seeking solace for a very different situation. But the words were still just as useful. When Elizabeth's friend Richard tells her to give her situation six months, and she explains that she's already given it twelve, he says to her, "Then give it six more. Just keep throwin' six months at it until it goes away. Stuff like this takes time."

Then he tells her this: "Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place in the world for it--in a beautiful place of worship surrounded by grace. Take this time, every minute of it."

I keep coming back to the idea that if teeth are attached to every organ in the body, much like they are to the feet in reflexology, then it makes sense that I feel at sixes and sevens all the time (even as I'm in the 490s). My commitment to yoga is deepening again (the first principle of Anusara yoga is "open to grace"--how appropriate considering the Gilbert quote) and I am trying to use the tools I have to help my my body find its way as the interior teeth and organs shift. I aim to be gentle, but I fall back into old patterns. Just ask my mom--she can tell you that I have never been good at transitioning throughout the course of my entire life.

I had a dream the other night that Betty White and Diana Ross were in army fatigues, standing next to versions of themselves in civilian clothes. They were hugging themselves and saying goodbye. I couldn't tell if it was the army or civilian version that was leaving in the dream, or if they were simply going their separate ways. I think this means that I have to say goodbye to the outdated pieces of myself that were big and consequential at one time, but now have a different place of importance in the galaxy. Maybe it also means that I don't have to be prepared to defend myself all the time. Maybe all is well. Maybe my orthodontist knows what he's doing. Maybe I just need to keep throwin' six months at it, and all will be made clear.

PS. In case you haven't seen the trailer, the movie looks like it's going to be pretty good: