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returned to
Eat Pray Love
. This time, I took it in like a rescued fledgling being fed by an eyedropper. My entire life, I had wanted to be chosen. And then I was. And then I wasn’t. My fiancé changed his mind three months before our wedding, and the very public nature of calling it off meant everyone—all the people I loved and the cake baker besides—now knew what I suspected my whole life: I was unlovable.
    I needed the rest of Liz’s story. It was time to get out of India and make my passage to Bali.
    The engagement had ended dramatically, but the process of severing the relationship was slow.
    I finished the book and, as if divinely scheduled, the movie of
Eat Pray Love
hit theaters ten days after my ex and I finally called it quits. I wept through the entire film. Shortly thereafter I made a trip to Sedona, Arizona. I spent my days climbing red rocks in the sun. I visited the Chapel of the Holy Cross, an architectural masterpiece built into the side of a hill. In a daze, I made my way around the chapel’s gift shop, full of books and trinkets.I came across a display of medals of patron saints and started picking up different ones, pressing their raised surfaces against my thumb. I wondered if these icons could actually deliver peace.
    The last one I held was “Divine Mercy.” Yes, this is the one, I thought. I hung it around my neck, believing it would stay there indefinitely.
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    W hen I was fifteen, I fell in love with Ireland. I think it was those bookstore calendars, all the mossy castles and rolling hills. Then I discovered there was a Halfpenny Bridge in Dublin, and that cemented it. This was clearly my land; these were my people. I decided that before I was married I would go to Ireland and stand as a Halfpenny on the Halfpenny Bridge.
    I took my self-proclaimed spiritual pilgrimage very seriously and boasted to others about it. The thing is, I really did feel as if part of my heart was waiting for me on that bridge, and I had to travel to Ireland if I ever wanted to claim it.
    Eat Pray Love
resurrected that old dream of mine. It occurred to me that I would have been married without ever standing on that bridge. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe that piece of my heart was still there, still waiting for me. Maybe the person I was meant to choose was myself.
    My teenage promise became a call to action. I had to get to Ireland—and I was hell-bent on going alone. Even so, it took a village to get me there. I was dirt-poor, working for a nonprofit where I had been in a salary freeze for eighteen months. Supportive friends stepped up, offering rides, travel guides and advice. My best friend, Kelli, loaned me the money for my planeticket until my tax return came and I could pay her back. I told her, somewhat waveringly, of my plan. We cried together in her bathroom, and she whispered, “You have to do this, Aimee. You have to.”
    I arrived in Dublin on an unusually warm day in late February. I wandered the city taking in the Georgian architecture and trying to understand the heavy Irish accents. I visited Dublin Castle and the Chester Beatty Library, which houses some of the world’s rarest and earliest religious texts. Finally, after settling into my apartment, I knew it was time. I looked out over the rooftops and took a deep breath. I asked God to make me brave, and the tiny voice inside me said, “Be present. That’s what I want for you in this, to be present.”
    Having a peaceful or meaningful moment on the Halfpenny Bridge, it turns out, is a little like finding Zen in the Lincoln Tunnel. The bridge connects a bustling business district of Dublin to the pub mecca of Temple Bar and is always packed with people. I made my way through the crowd and then I was finally doing it—I was really standing there, a Halfpenny on the Halfpenny Bridge. I asked a passing man to take a picture of me and smiled joyfully. I brought two