April Love

It must have been my colds, or I am already getting deaf, because I did not quite understand when an Indonesian colleague asked me one time if I was interested in watching “April Love.”

 The silence that followed, as I tried to comb through the cobwebs of my brain to recall what new movie was that, apparently gave away that I was clueless as to what he was saying.

“You know, that movie starring Julia Roberts, where a portion was shot in Bali (in Indonesia),” he elucidated.  He meant “Eat Pray Love,” which sounded differently to me when he uttered it. 

“Yes, I am,” I told him, also curious what Bali might look like in the movie, as I missed a recent trip with officemates to the island internationally famous for its white sand beaches.

Based on the best-selling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, the film was about a woman whose unhappy marriage led her to go to Italy, India, and Indonesia to “find herself.” After her divorce, she appeared reluctant to love again, despite finding it in Bali. In the end, however, after helpful advice, she yielded, finding the “crossover” her life needed.

This made me remember a friend who sighed one time that she wished she could have a one-week break from life.  It was like wishing to die and be resurrected after seven days.  I later learned her relationship was on the rocks or that it was shaky from the start.

Unlike a ball game, however, we regrettably cannot have that timeout from life, even if the path is full of thorns and the journey does not seem to unfold the way we want it.  

The best approach to dealing with life’s obstacles is to still trod on and cut our losses, to sling those heavy backpacks on our bent backs and plod on through the sleet and rain, come hell or high water. 

We have to hang on for the sake of our loved ones and those who love us, since by simply being there we make them happy. (That is aside from making our enemies angry in seeing us pick ourselves up, with our dignity intact, from a nasty fall into the muck.) 

Though we may be pummeled every which way, with every ounce of our body wanting that we plop down and die; though we feel that the last shred of hope is taken away from us, we must bear through it all for our loved ones.

 

It is because they are the ones who give meaning to everything that we do; they make this life worth living and the hardships worth enduring. 

However, if those whom we thought complete our lives are actually hurting us and causing us pain, that is the time to let go.

If Roberts’ character had to eat in Italy, pray in India, and love in Bali before realizing that she has to move on and cross over to the next chapter of her life, we need not go to those places just to see when we must give up to gain what we need.

We must understand that false hopes are not worth clinging on to, and that ignoring the right course is simply fooling no one but ourselves .  

Sadly, though, this advice often falls on deaf ears, with many preferring to hear “April Love” than straining to know the right words.