Journey to Love, Return to Light

This story is not a "pity party", a "whoa is me story", a "me and my poor life" story. It's a reflection on the weaving together of all the things that I have learned, and how the pieces fit together and made sense as I searched for those that had been lost & were deeply hidden, in order to put them in their rightful place. It's a story of great healing. Of meditation & inspiration. Of prayers long asked for answered in unexpected, and often undesired, ways. A "hindsight is 20/20" story. A lesson in seeing how everything works together for our highest good if we allow it to. If we allow ourselves to see that it all has meaning. The majority of this story took decades to understand. By the time I finish writing it, I will have learned more, brought more to the surface, and by the time you read it, the puzzle will have grown. I'm not sure the puzzle will ever be finished, even after I take my last breath, for we are all connected, and my story will live on as you figure out how your puzzle fits together, and get curious about finding your hidden pieces... This story starts as a childhood dream. A dream fulfilled, but not in the way I ever could have imagined… Growing up I loved to dance. I would turn on Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, and Michael Jackson, and dance my little heart out in my bedroom and on our back lawn with my boom box blasting. I craved dance lessons as a child, but I knew my parents couldn't afford them, so I didn't cry, & I didn't pout about them - it's just the way things were. When I got to high school, I finally took my first dance class. I was horrible, in the sense that I had no technique - but I had skill, I had heart, I had desire. I tried out for drill team & didn't make it - the rejection was hard to take but wasn't a surprise. I was competing for a limited number of spots with 100 other girls who had grown up dancing; who could pirouette, and do tour jetés, and fouttés til I was dizzy just watching them. I was stoked I even made it to finals. The middle of my junior year my back started hurting - a dull constant ache to begin with - and it never subsided, for eleven years... My mom took me to see one of her best friends, a back specialist, "Dr. Jane." - The muscle relaxers didn't help, the pain killers didn't either, plus they made me nauseous. No thanks. So I'd go to school every day in pain, & sit in my chair on my forearms with my torso parallel to the ground and shift from side to side as I got the eyebrow lift from my teachers in the look of "can't you just sit up in your seat like a normal student?" No, I couldn't - I was in chronic pain.