CHAPTER 1

Foundations

Welcome to my life

WANTED:

Complete strangers to accompany a 45-year-old, Australianwife and mother of nine on the journey of a lifetime.All expenses paid by me in blood, sweat and tears.Guaranteed to make you laugh, cry and ponder life's meaning.Guaranteed to heal your heart, challenge yourmind and rejuvenate your soul.No experience is necessary, butCompassion and understanding is a must.Travel dates are completely flexible.Interested parties please apply by reading the following pages.Only after this will the journey truly begin.For both of us.For it will be through you that I will have thechance to live and create myself anew.

The life I lead now has happened according to my pastthoughts and choices. Responsibility is a much harder pillto swallow than blame. In some ways, I wish I could returnto my Christian beliefs where I could opt for the excuse of being in thehands of Almighty will, but this newfound belief has sown itself in thefolds of my soul and given birth to new views. I probably wouldn't havesurvived much longer. With the passing of each year, another withoutidentifying my connection and my purpose, it felt like my soul was beingdrawn back to the only place of comfort and release I knew. Life was oftenmore than I could bear, and although I didn't understand the spirituallonging I felt, I subconsciously believed that suicide would take me home.Being exposed to a new perspective is amazingly exciting, but I also feelincredibly vulnerable. I'm seeing the world in a whole new way and I'meager to explore its unlimited possibilities, but the "what ifs" haven't beenfully dispelled. I never imagined that I could leave the security of myself-limiting behavior, nor escape from the bars that held me captive.I never imagined that I could be more than I was. Quite honestly, thethought never crossed my mind.

I'm not an object of obscurity as one might imagine an average womanto be. I've lived an intense life with ample highs and too many lows. Buthere I am, standing on the threshold of self-discovery and experiencingthe meaning of a 'mid-life crisis.' For me, it's time to stand up and growup; but I'm grieving at present. I'm angry, hurt and annoyed that it'staken me near on half a century to learn the truth. I'm grieving for whoI thought I was supposed to be, when all along I could've given up thefight and surrendered to who I was created to be. The distortion in myown belief began some time ago. So far, the journey hasn't been much fun,and changing my self-perception is proving to be a continual challenge.But here I am, eager and willing to unearth the truth of my existence inthe slim chance of discovering a new me in the folds of a different belief.To say that what I'm doing is unimportant would be to discredit what Iam being. I'm writing a story in which I am both the storyteller and themain character; therefore, I must be the experience in order to relate theexperience. In the words of a spiritual master, "words help us to understandsomething, but experience allows us to know it" (Walsch, 1997). May yoube blessed by the story of my experiences.

Bear with me a few moments while I introduce you to the elementsof my existence. As we are partners on this journey, it's worth knowingjust who you're traveling with. The choice is yours whether to travel thedistance beside me, and at this stage there's no guarantee it's going to befun.

As a child my life was boring. I had one older brother, created ina different decade. Sibling rivalry was never an issue. My parents werewealthy and happily married when I came along: the product of many yearsof trying to have a child with no success. Little was known, or discussed,in regard to such an intensely private problem, and as devout Catholicsmy mother and father had faith in God's timing or divine punishment,depending on which way you chose to see something. When I was growingup there was no such thing as denial. It was believed that money couldproduce a happy child, and instead of remembering fairytales and fables,I have memories of discussions relating to trust funds and tax deductions.According to what I've been told, it wasn't always like that. I just happenedto come along when life was good By fifteen I'd traveled the world moretimes than I could remember. I'd visited churches of every denominationand era, and eaten in restaurants with names I could not pronounce.Despite the fact that I was often told just how lucky I was, how trulyprivileged I was, I never felt that way. These were my experiences, butthey didn't define me, so I was left feeling as though I'd missed somethingimportant. I just couldn't put my youthful finger on it; not that at fifteenyou understand what it is. It was only when I was among the poor andthe suffering, the downtrodden and the pitiful that I felt truly stirred. Itwas within these experiences that I felt alive, worthwhile, understood. Icould relate in some unspoken way that I never could within the familythat formed my own reality.

At sixteen I had a very blasé attitude of 'been there, done that,' andfelt as though I'd seen far too much too soon, so when I met a boy whoopened up new and exciting opportunities, I fell head over heels in love.We were married just after my eighteenth birthday with our first childwell developed within the womb. Our engagement gift was an overseastrip, and our wedding gift, a hefty deposit on our first home. Could it getany easier? Well, I guess it depends on how you view the experience.

The high was rapidly becoming a low sometime during the secondpregnancy. Neither of us looked too hard at why, because at that agewho really wants to see? By baby number three, coming just three yearsafter baby number one, the signs were evident, yet the ditch we'd dug forourselves was becoming increasingly deeper with each child. What do youdo when you're young and unsure of all you're sensing? You move awayfrom the reality and choose instead to live in a world of denial. I chose notto see my husband's interest in others and misguidedly believed that if Icould just try harder it would be OK. It makes me incredibly sad to realizethat as I sit here and write these words more than two decades on, I stillstruggle with the belief that I'm just not good enough. This still remainsmy greatest challenge.

Don't fear dear reader; I won't reinvent each and every event of mypast before I begin, but I must advise you of some important facts beforeyou tick the 'I agree' box and move into our shared...