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"When Drew Barrymore bounds into the offices of her Hollywood production company, Flower Films, she may be wearing the new-mom uniform \u2014 no makeup, a sweatshirt and jeans she says she just grabbed off her bedroom floor \u2014 but she doesn&amp;#039;t show one ounce of typical just-had-a-baby exhaustion. Olive, her first child with her husband, art consultant Will Kopelman, was born on September 26, and \u2014 barely a month later \u2014 Barrymore seems remarkably energized by all the newfound love in her life. After staying home for much of the pregnancy, she and Kopelman are already incorporating date nights back into their relationship, along with days of doting on their baby girl. The night before, Kopelman took Barrymore to the Universal Studios theme park in Hollywood for its Halloween Horror Night. (Though Olive stayed at home, she had her share of holiday festivities \u2014 her parents goofily dressed her up as a lobster, inserted her into a large pot, and snapped plenty of pictures. &amp;quot;I would take a lobster costume over a couture dress any day,&amp;quot; says her proud mom.) This is an intensely, almost unimaginably happy time for Barrymore: The night at the amusement park set off sparks for Kopelman and her that were as electric as when they first became an item. &amp;quot;Last night, I was looking at my husband like, What if he weren&amp;#039;t my husband and we hadn&amp;#039;t just had a baby and we were just here with a group of people?&amp;quot; Barrymore recalls, beaming. &amp;quot;I was just having such a crush on him.&amp;quot; After years of teenage rebellion, two short-lived marriages (to Jeremy Thomas for two months in 1994, and to comedian Tom Green for six months in 2001), and two much longer relationships (five years with Fabrizio Moretti of The Strokes; a few on-and-off years with actor Justin Long), Barrymore finally feels she&amp;#039;s on the right path. With her new thoughtfully chosen roles of wife, mother, and \u2014 surprise! \u2014 makeup mogul, she is transitioning to a more mature and heartfelt understanding of what really matters in life. And she couldn&amp;#039;t be more optimistic about her recent decisions. EAT, PRAY, LEAVE This peace of mind took some serious engineering and tough choices. Perhaps the most challenging was the long stretch when Barrymore left her Hollywood life to go on what some might call a sabbatical. In Barrymore&amp;#039;s case, it was a year of self-discovery and adventure, similar to what Elizabeth Gilbert famously captured in her best seller Eat, Pray, Love. The journey began soon after Barrymore made her directorial debut in 2009 with Whip It, a movie she also starred in, about a Texas roller derby. Despite the satisfaction of this achievement, she recognized that she&amp;#039;d become a textbook workaholic. &amp;quot;I was always really focused on the thing I was working on, then worried about that thing I had to go to next,&amp;quot; she recalls. &amp;quot;So my brain was always tied up in the present and in the future.&amp;quot; Since founding Flower Films with best pal (and wife of Jimmy Fallon) Nancy Juvonen in 1995, Barrymore had had a string of hits, surprising for a place as fickle as Hollywood: On the serious side, there was Donnie Darko; on the blockbuster side, Charlie&amp;#039;s Angels and its sequel; and, when it came to romantic comedies, there were Music and Lyrics, He&amp;#039;s Just Not That Into You, and 50 First Dates, in which Barrymore also starred. Beyond those movies, there were the campaigns for CoverGirl and Gucci Jewelry, and those rather tempestuous relationships, which provided plenty of tabloid fodder but never quite led to anything permanent. Where was Barrymore&amp;#039;s own off-screen romantic comedy, with a &amp;quot;happily ever after&amp;quot; ending? She realized she&amp;#039;d have to go out and find it. &amp;quot;I just knew I couldn&amp;#039;t sustain this life and have a relationship and a family,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I wanted to live a little bit more in the present.&amp;quot; Mostly, she confides, &amp;quot;I knew I wanted things to be different.&amp;quot; And so she decided to take a real break: &amp;quot;I thought, What if I distance myself a little bit, take some time off, and smell the flowers elsewhere in life? It&amp;#039;s so scary to leave everything behind; it&amp;#039;s terrifying.&amp;quot; She worried that she might lose her fire, her ambition to create opportunities for her production team and for herself. &amp;quot;Will I suddenly become un-passionate and stop caring?&amp;quot; she wondered. Would the workaholic part of her, which had defined her since she first became a child star in the eighties with E.T., Firestarter, and Irreconcilable Differences, disappear? &amp;quot;It freaked me out. I was afraid to let go,&amp;quot; she admits. &amp;quot;But with great risk comes great reward.&amp;quot; One day, a film project she had worked on getting off the ground for a solid year &amp;quot;just disintegrated into thin air,&amp;quot; Barrymore recalls wistfully. And she realized a life of &amp;quot;working, working, working, working, and working&amp;quot; just wasn&amp;#039;t going to be enough. It was time for a change, so she packed her bags. Reading Eat, Pray, Love along the way, Barrymore took herself, by herself, to India. She walked through the Himalayas in Bhutan for a couple of weeks. And she learned about the beauty of time, she says, and how amazing and peaceful solo life can be. &amp;quot;We always wonder [when single], Where is this person? Oh my God, I&amp;#039;m lonely; what&amp;#039;s my future? But eventually you&amp;#039;ll meet somebody, and this time will be gone. And you will kick yourself for not enjoying it,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;For me, that year was a great investment. It made me realize, I&amp;#039;m ready for something different.&amp;quot; Without that one year to just be alone and think, Barrymore believes, things might not have worked out the way they did. &amp;quot;Had I not carved out that time for myself, I don&amp;#039;t know if I&amp;#039;d be as happy trying to figure out what makes my husband happy and how to be a good mom,&amp;quot; she explains. &amp;quot;I needed to be on my own and do my own thing.&amp;quot; Next:   RE-MEETING MR. RIGHT She didn&amp;#039;t bump into Kopelman deep in a faraway forest, as movies tend to portray such things. Instead, upon her return, she found the love of her life basically in her own backyard, as Barrymore refers to West Hollywood. She and Kopelman \u2014 the son of former Chanel CEO Arie Kopelman \u2014 had actually met before. Heck, they&amp;#039;d gone on dates before. &amp;quot;And they were super-awesome, but we just knew it wasn&amp;#039;t the right time,&amp;quot; Barrymore says. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m such a profound believer that timing is everything; I would tattoo that on my arm.&amp;quot; Instead, her left arm is already inked with the word &amp;quot;Breathe,&amp;quot; to remind her to take a few minutes to meditate every day. So with the effects of her globe-trotting still lingering and timing on her side, she and Kopelman reconnected at a mutual friend&amp;#039;s house. (When she was about to pop out Olive, she and Kopelman drove by that same friend&amp;#039;s house. &amp;quot;I said, &amp;#039;Let&amp;#039;s pull over and take a picture and document this. We found each other. We made it happen. How cool is that?&amp;#039; &amp;quot; she recalls.) But back to that re-meeting: &amp;quot;I was so relieved. For the first time, I didn&amp;#039;t enter a relationship like, Oh, my God! I&amp;#039;m so in love, let&amp;#039;s go forward,&amp;quot; she says, referring to her former full-speed-ahead romantic pattern. &amp;quot;This was a much more thoughtful and slow and sober process. It felt clearheaded and rational.&amp;quot; Almost immediately, Barrymore and Kopelman started taking trips together, which she believes can reveal a lot about how things will (or will not) work out. &amp;quot;How you travel together is so eye-opening in terms of how you&amp;#039;re going to live together,&amp;quot; she says. They went to Portland, OR. They went to Italy. They went to Africa. They went on over 20 trips that first year, with the unspoken thought that if they should want to marry and start a family quickly, they&amp;#039;d better do this now, Barrymore notes. Their travels taught them about new places \u2014 and about each other. &amp;quot;No matter how far away we went, he understood that I always need an iced tea,&amp;quot; Barrymore says with a smile. &amp;quot;And I began to understand that he likes to be on time for a plane and not stressed out. He really wants me to pack the night before; he doesn&amp;#039;t like the morning drama.&amp;quot; So she learned compromise: &amp;quot;I started to do that so I could make life a little easier. And you know what? It&amp;#039;s not a bad system. Systems are good. They work.&amp;quot; With routines in place, almost as soon as they started dating &amp;quot;we were working on bigger-picture things.&amp;quot; Talks of matrimony and having a baby arose naturally for the couple. &amp;quot;I just knew that&amp;#039;s what I wanted to do,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I couldn&amp;#039;t imagine being in yet another trailer, in another strange location, being somebody else; I&amp;#039;d done that for 35 years. I thought, Let&amp;#039;s try something new. And I was so ready and excited.&amp;quot; As the relationship progressed, she says, perhaps her most valuable lesson was that &amp;quot;you need to stop trying to prove your point so much, and listen to the other person. That&amp;#039;s been a really wonderful revelation.&amp;quot; As has been the depth of her love for her husband. They tied the knot last June in a backyard ceremony at Barrymore&amp;#039;s Montecito, CA, home. &amp;quot;Will is my North Star,&amp;quot; she says, her eyes growing wide with emotion. &amp;quot;You know, I&amp;#039;ve never said that before.&amp;quot; Which makes it all the more prescient that the first gift Kopelman ever got her was a compass. Did he give it to her so she&amp;#039;d always be able to find her way back to him? &amp;quot;It did become that,&amp;quot; says Barrymore, a little misty-eyed. &amp;quot;So if he knew that, then good for him, because he lassoed me right on in. Whether he meant it that way or not at the time, he is my home.&amp;quot; The compass rests on an altar in Barrymore&amp;#039;s home along with other important objects, like prayer beads from a monk in the Himalayas, photos of her nieces and nephews (Kopelman&amp;#039;s sister&amp;#039;s kids back in New York), &amp;quot;everything I&amp;#039;ve sort of collected along the way \u2014 deity figures, books I&amp;#039;ve read, trinkets that are really, really important to me.&amp;quot; Barrymore has always been an enthusiastic student and sampler of spirituality. She tries to spend five minutes each day at the altar to meditate, &amp;quot;to just get quiet. I think it helps in domestic issues,&amp;quot; she says, &amp;quot;and in how you behave out there in the world when you leave the house.&amp;quot; She and Kopelman plan to raise Olive in the Jewish faith, however, in keeping with the manner of Kopelman&amp;#039;s more traditionally religious extended family. &amp;quot;Every video we take, we&amp;#039;re like, &amp;#039;Save it for the bat mitzvah reel!&amp;#039; &amp;quot; Barrymore laughs. Next:   BRINGING UP BABY Barrymore wasn&amp;#039;t on bed rest leading up to her daughter&amp;#039;s birth, but she confesses to barely ever leaving her house when pregnant. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t go out for like six or seven months. It was really nice to just get quiet,&amp;quot; she says of the nesting mode.  &amp;quot;I cleaned out every single drawer in my house,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I went through storage units. That&amp;#039;s how I lived my days. They say cats run around shredding paper before they&amp;#039;re about to give birth. That&amp;#039;s exactly how I was.&amp;quot;  As she gained weight, satisfying her cravings and feasting on tamales and Key lime cheesecake from Magnolia Bakery, so did her husband \u2014 so much so that she recently bought him a 10-pack of classes at the spin studio SoulCycle to work off some of the sympathy weight. Barrymore confides that she refuses to stress about her own post-baby shape. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m still working on it, but I&amp;#039;m not worrying about it. We live in a society where everyone&amp;#039;s like, &amp;#039;Look at how amazing she looks two weeks out [from giving birth],&amp;#039; &amp;quot; she observes. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t want to be on that hamster wheel; that&amp;#039;s hell. I&amp;#039;m never going to have the kind of body that makes me excited about bikini season,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve never had a &amp;#039;beach body.&amp;#039; But I want to feel like I&amp;#039;m showing up and doing my best. My goal is to be nice to myself, gentle toward myself, during this process. It&amp;#039;s such a sacred time.&amp;quot; Even without the overlay of a recent pregnancy, Barrymore isn&amp;#039;t one to fret over a few extra pounds: &amp;quot;I think that being happy makes the biggest impact on your physical appearance. Of course I want to look good in clothes. And it never makes me feel good when somebody who has an insane figure tells me, &amp;#039;I eat whatever I want.&amp;#039; I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;#039;Thank you so much for making me feel like crap.&amp;#039; I know if I eat whatever I want, I will not look amazing. So it&amp;#039;s all about balance for me. But I don&amp;#039;t want perfection; I don&amp;#039;t actually believe in it. What I&amp;#039;ve learned along the way is, work with what you have; embrace what you&amp;#039;ve been given. Don&amp;#039;t fight against it.&amp;quot;  This easy-does-it ethos permeates every aspect of her life as a new mom. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve been telling myself to be calm. Calm in crisis, calm in the morning \u2014 calm, calm, calm. I&amp;#039;ve approached so many things in my life with such intensity that I want to approach motherhood with dedication and focus,&amp;quot; she explains.  Right now, there is no place she would rather be than at home, in sweatpants, with Kopelman and Olive. (She laughs and admits that on some days, only one of the legs in those sweatpants might be shaved; if Olive starts crying in the middle of Barrymore&amp;#039;s shower, she bolts \u2014 grooming can wait.)  &amp;quot;My favorite thing about being a mom is just what a better person it makes you on a daily basis,&amp;quot; she admits. &amp;quot;Every morning when I wake her up, the endgame is, Can I get her to smile? And that puts me in a good mood. It&amp;#039;s definitely a different way to live \u2014 and a much better one.&amp;quot; Family is such a focus for Barrymore now because hers was so fractured and troubled during her childhood. She was born into the acting profession, the granddaughter of the legendary John Barrymore. At 11 months old, she was already appearing in commercials. She was 7 years old when audiences fell in love with her as the little girl in E.T. Her mother, Jaid, who split from Barrymore&amp;#039;s father when Barrymore was young, famously took her daughter along on the New York City party circuit, to Studio 54 and elsewhere. At 13, an angelic-looking Barrymore was already in rehab with substance-use issues. At 15, she legally emancipated herself from her parents. At 19, she was posing for Playboy magazine.  It took until 2004, when Barrymore&amp;#039;s father was on his deathbed, for a reconciliation to take place.  &amp;quot;My friendships,&amp;quot; she says, &amp;quot;are like my original family.&amp;quot; Juvonen, her business partner and best friend, &amp;quot;is the hero of my life and the family I didn&amp;#039;t have,&amp;quot; she says \u2014 the person who taught her that happiness is a choice anyone can make. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d never seen someone wave that flag in such an obvious way,&amp;quot; Barrymore says gratefully. She likensJuvonen to her husband, Kopelman, because &amp;quot;they&amp;#039;re both from really strong families, and they have a great stable foundation under them.&amp;quot; She expects to raise her family in the same kind of way. &amp;quot;Oh, my God,&amp;quot; Barrymore says, &amp;quot;I will literally fight like a lion to keep my family happy and intact. Maybe I wouldn&amp;#039;t feel that way if I&amp;#039;d had a great family growing up. This is my time for that, and I will never take it for granted.&amp;quot; FLOWER POWER  In January, Barrymore gave birth to another kind of baby, her own makeup business: Flower cosmetics. Even with her intense focus on the film industry, she has always pursued other ventures. A naturally creative spirit, she can&amp;#039;t resist dabbling \u2014 and then some \u2014 in new interests. Last spring, despite her focus on wedding preparations, she brought to market a pinot grigio under the label &amp;quot;Barrymore.&amp;quot; The company motto: &amp;quot;From our family to yours.&amp;quot; The Flower collection will be sold exclusively at Walmart. The line embodies her dream of offering superior quality at a cost anyone can afford. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s my goal,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Women deserve something beautiful and unattainable they wouldn&amp;#039;t get otherwise.&amp;quot;  An actress her whole life, Barrymore has had ample opportunity to try a huge range of beauty products. CoverGirl was so impressed with her know-how that it made her a co-creative director during her five-year-long stint as a spokeswoman for the brand. She&amp;#039;s always felt that makeup can ease a lot of superficial troubles.  &amp;quot;Throwing a little bit of paint on my face, that&amp;#039;s going to make me a feel a lot better,&amp;quot; she admits.  Developing Flower &amp;quot;was kind of like being pregnant,&amp;quot; Barrymore explains. Creating makeup, she adds, &amp;quot;is very nurturing and romantic; it&amp;#039;s about coming up with formulas that you think are beautiful. You think a lot about what a woman might want.&amp;quot; Working on shades and lipsticks also made her think about her legacy and building a business for her children (yes, she wants more of them). &amp;quot;I would really like to do things in life that make my kids proud. With something like this, they could work on the business in the future. Maybe my daughter would want to run the company one day when she&amp;#039;s older,&amp;quot; Barrymore muses.  More than that, she hopes the message of her brand will resonate with women everywhere. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s about loving the way you look, and it&amp;#039;s coming from a person who believes happiness is really the best makeup in the world. That&amp;#039;s something you cannot paint on. There&amp;#039;s nothing you can put on your face that comes in a tube that&amp;#039;s going to be as amazing as a smile. Wait, I take it back!&amp;quot; she says with a laugh. &amp;quot;You can find happiness in a tube, and it&amp;#039;s called concealer!&amp;quot; One thing the line likely won&amp;#039;t have is an emphasis on high-tech anti-aging products. Here&amp;#039;s why: When it comes to getting older \u2014 Barrymore will be 38 this month \u2014 she has taught herself to &amp;quot;embrace it. Do not fight it. Because guess what? You will not win that battle.&amp;quot; Embracing the ups and downs of life and staying calm seems to be Barrymore&amp;#039;s newfound happiness formula. Looking back on the difficult times she often experienced before Olive, before Kopelman, before Flower Films, Barrymore says if she could meet her younger self, she would tell her that every day she&amp;#039;d come across things that would feel like the end of the world. &amp;quot; &amp;#039;And all of that stress and anxiety and worry \u2014 you will later know that you don&amp;#039;t need that.&amp;#039; But frankly, if I&amp;#039;d heard that, I don&amp;#039;t know if I would have listened.&amp;quot; She pauses for a moment and smiles. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m just glad I know that now.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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