Eat, Pray, Love

Who would financially support the babies? Who would feed the babies in the middle of the
night? I remember saying once to my friend Susan, when my marriage was becoming intoler-
able, “I don’t want my children growing up in a household like this.” Susan said, “Why don’t
you leave those so-called children out of the discussion? They don’t even exist yet, Liz. Why
can’t you just admit that you don’t want to live in unhappiness anymore? That neither of you
does. And it’s better to realize it now, by the way, than in the delivery room when you’re at five
centimeters.”
I remember going to a party in New York around that time. A couple, a pair of successful
artists, had just had a baby, and the mother was celebrating a gallery opening of her new
paintings. I remember watching this woman, the new mother, my friend, the artist, as she tried
to be hostess to this party (which was in her loft) at the same time as taking care of her infant
and trying to discuss her work professionally. I never saw somebody look so sleep-deprived in
my life. I can never forget the image of her standing in her kitchen after midnight, el-
bows-deep in a sink full of dishes, trying to clean up after this event. Her husband (I am sorry
to report it, and I fully realize this is not at all representational of every husband) was in the
other room, feet literally on the coffee table, watching TV. She finally asked him if he would
help clean the kitchen, and he said, “Leave it, hon—we’ll clean up in the morning.” The baby
started crying again. My friend was leaking breast milk through her cocktail dress.
Almost certainly, other people who attended this party came away with different images
than I did. Any number of the other guests could have felt great envy for this beautiful woman
with her healthy new baby, for her successful artistic career, for her marriage to a nice man,
for her lovely apartment, for her cocktail dress. There were people at this party who would
probably have traded lives with her in an instant, given the chance. This woman herself prob-
ably looks back on that evening—if she ever thinks of it at all—as one tiring but totally worth-it
night in her overall satisfying life of motherhood and marriage and career. All I can say for my-
self, though, is that I spent that whole party trembling in panic, thinking, If you don’t recognize
that this is your future, Liz, then you are out of your mind. Do not let it happen.
But did I have a responsibility to have a family? Oh, Lord—responsibility. That word
worked on me until I worked on it, until I looked at it carefully and broke it down into the two
words that make its true definition: the ability to respond. And what I ultimately had to respond
to was the reality that every speck of my being was telling me to get out of my marriage.
Somewhere inside me an early-warning system was forecasting that if I kept trying to white-
knuckle my way through this storm, I would end up getting cancer. And that if I brought chil-
dren into the world anyway, just because I didn’t want to deal with the hassle or shame of re-
vealing some impractical facts about myself—this would be an act of grievous irresponsibility.