Journey to Serenity: A Personal Path to Self-Discovery

CONTENTS

FOREWORD BY MEGAN LANG

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CONTENTS

PRELUDE

POST NOTE

To my beautiful daughter Megan, your name came as a whisper on a dark night of my life and saved me, I love you baby girl!

FOREWORD BY MEGAN LANG

Do whatever you want, but tell me what to tell Megan in the morning.

This is an example of how close I came to not having a mother. Have you ever felt so close to rock bottom that not even the thought of your own child can pull you out of it? Then, someone walks through the door and forces you to come out of your fog enough to ask you that question. My mom has been there.

Addiction is a scary, realistic, part of life that is hard to understand or relate to until it is too late sometimes. Growing up I had a wonderful childhood, but at the expense of a lifetime of healing my mom went through to make it that way for us. When I was ten years old, my mom quit drinking alcohol but I don’t even remember her having a drink around me. As I get older, however, I realize what that addiction did to her life and that terrifying moment it brought her to, for her to make the choice to heal, and I’ve never been more proud of her. I support her in what she is doing, in writing this book, to help people out there who have been as far down as she was or are even on their way.

This book is about the journey my mom embarked on to save her life; and to become a better person for her, for her family, and for all of you. It is inspirational and motivating and shows the truly raw side of a woman that a lot of people would not have the strength to show.

I cannot help but get teary-eyed when I think of that awful night she had to live through and the soul-shaking question she was confronted with. I am so thankful every day that my mom is still here and there’s not a moment that goes by that I’m not proud of her for how far she has come and who she is because of it. I love you Mom.

Megan

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I first of all want to express my gratitude to Spirit who guides my life and when I can’t handle it, carries me until I can walk again, Thank you.

To my daughter Megan, the light of my life. You have been my teacher, my friend and the spirit that came here to walk this lifetime with me hand in hand.

To my Mom and Dad, Dennis and Garnet Blankenburg, your love and support have been the strength that pushes me forward and whose arms are there for me when I fall and need a lift.

To my brother Curt, I love you so very much, and hugs to your beautiful family.

Thank you to Shirley Whiting for your unconditional friendship, for editing this book and for always being there believing in me. It was no accident that we met when we did all those years ago.

Thank you to Katie Rasmussen, a blessing in many ways in my life, and the eye behind the cover of this book… . it is the perfect hug to my words.

And last but not least, to each and every one of you that have walked into my life and touched it with lessons, love, faith, encouragement and unconditional friendship, you know who you are, it is no accident who crosses our path and changes it forever!

CONTENTS

Ten years of my life… .

my journey to serenity!

I read this quote one day: The best way to succeed is to discover what you love and find a way to offer it to others. Oprah

Because I love my life, I now want to offer it to you as I share my experiences.

PRELUDE

Serenity, the very thing I am writing about is my biggest lesson. Over and over again in my life, serenity to accept the things I cannot change, acceptance/surrender. Past lifetimes, this lifetime, God has over and over put the situations in my life so I could learn and heal.

I realize that all the work I have done, the tearing down and the building back up, always pushing myself, and trying to stay in control has brought me to this point in my life. I have needed to analyze everything and believe in all that I believe in to find this person that I have become. I have reached my serenity in this moment and now I realize that my serenity is where I rest. It is where I live for a while until I find myself on a new path. Things begin to get off balance, I find myself questioning my beliefs. What do I want to keep, what do I need to let go of, what still works for me, what new fears need to be faced now that I am stronger and do I always have to be in control? There are more lessons to learn, a new level of myself to find and a new journey to serenity.

I’m writing this book to heal, to put closure to my past, and maybe my story can help you in some way, it is all part of my journey to serenity. I believe this all started when I was born I suppose, but I consciously became aware of it, and started to participate in it in January 1994 on one of the darkest nights of my life.

I was in a relationship for about two years, sure we had our ups and downs, but we were struggling on making it work. Maybe, now as I look back, I was afraid of being alone again, maybe I just didn’t want to start over, maybe I didn’t see a need to get out, whatever the reason I stayed in it and on our two year anniversary I was pushed to make a change.

I spent the whole day making an elaborate dinner, spending money I couldn’t afford, to create a special night for us. I was so excited, I had talked to him at noon and he said he would be there, everything seemed so good. The table was set, the candles lit and I waited for him to get there. By 8:00 that evening, I knew he wasn’t going to show, not even a phone call. I was so upset that I proceeded to do what any insane woman would do at that moment, wrote a letter ending the relationship! If he couldn’t make more of a commitment to us and didn’t even have enough respect for me to call and say he wasn’t coming, then I had had enough. It went on and on, I can’t remember exactly what it said, but the purpose of the letter was to make him feel bad enough to come running back, apologize, and say he couldn’t live without me. I called his sister to come over and watch my daughter while I went to his house and put the letter on his pillow, where I knew he wouldn’t miss it when he came home, if he came home, and I left to wait for his call. It never came.

I was sick, I cried all week, but I would not call. After writing the letter giving him an ultimatum, I felt it was his place to call and I didn’t know what to say to him anyway. A week or so later I was still feeling terrible, so some friends decided it was time I get out of the house and we went out to drown my sorrows at our favorite bar. We sat there awhile talking trying to cheer me up when in he walks, with someone else! You can imagine my shock, I really expected him to be feeling as bad as I was, missing me as much as I was missing him, I just thought he didn’t know what to say and was scared to call me. I was speechless, mad, hurt, angry, and I think my mind left me in that moment. I tried to talk to him, but he acted like nothing was wrong and then they left the bar so I wouldn’t make a scene. I proceeded to drink more, trying to get drunk so it wouldn’t hurt so much and I could escape the pain. But it didn’t work, it only made me brave and after an hour or so, I called his house. She answered the phone, which upset me more, but I calmly asked to speak to him. I told him I wanted to talk, he owed me that after two years and that I was coming over. He told me not to, that we would talk the next day, but I went anyway. When I got there, they were gone, to her house I suppose, and this started my darkest night.

I went crazy, I drank, I cried, I yelled, I threw things and when friends came to find me and tried to take me home I tried to jump out of the car because they were taking me to their house and not mine. I promised not to jump if they would just take me home, I promised to stay there and go to bed. They believed me and took me home. I drank some more and then drove back to his house, broke into the now locked door and went in. I have never in my life before this night or after been in such a black, black hole. I couldn’t find my way out, I knew I was being totally out of control but I couldn’t control it. I could find nothing good to hold onto, I was slipping to a place I had never been before and I didn’t want to feel this pain ever again. I paced around his house, remembering our moments together, drinking, crying, writing him a letter and trying to figure out how to fix things. But as I did all of this something inside me went dark and then I could only see one way to never feel this pain and heartbreak again and that was to not go on. I didn’t want to live through this again and I don’t know where the thought came from but I could not see anything beyond that thought once it got into my head. I went to his gun case, but it was locked, I looked for the key but never found it. I didn’t know what to do but I was so far out of my mind that nothing mattered except that and in a strange way it filled me with a hope, a way out.

Luckily when we hit bottom and are in our darkest moments, someone or something is watching over us and seems to carry us until our mind comes back. I decided to call one of our mutual friends first to see if he had any answers, if he knew why this had happened, if he knew what was going on, and how long? He knew right away something was different in my voice, he could hear it and he asked me to just sit down and not do anything until he got there. I told him not to come, just to stay on the phone with me and talk to me for a little longer. Before we finished our conversation my friend, who had taken me home earlier, came through the door. She said that she had a feeling and couldn’t sleep so she came back to town to check on me and didn’t find me at home. I remember feeling so numb, so lost, and so unfocused as I watched her come through the door and I heard her voice but it was like she was unreal and part of me wanted her to go away because I knew she would stop me and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be stopped. I don’t remember much of our conversation after that, I know she talked and I cried and I told her how I was feeling, that I didn’t want any more pain in my life and I didn’t see a way out. Of course she tried to talk me out of it but I would not listen and was so out of control. So finally she pushed me up against the wall, stuck her finger in my face and said You do what you want to then, but first, you tell me what to tell your daughter tomorrow when I have to tell her you are gone! It was like a bucket of cold water and my reality came slamming back.

Obviously I didn’t carry out my escape that night. Instead, I started a journey that continues to this day. Even after the wake-up call that night the weekend was dark and I had hit bottom. I took my daughter to her dad, I couldn’t be a Mom at the moment, and I needed to be alone with my pain and figure things out. I couldn’t believe how close I had come to ending my own life, how fast I got there, and how when I was there, it was like tunnel vision and nothing else existed. I prayed, well begged really, and I tried to find a light in my life and couldn’t. I went to bed praying like never before for answers, for guidance, anything to save me and I totally surrendered and begged God, Spirit, whatever, to take over because I could not find the way out by myself. I didn’t have much faith in what I was doing, but really I had nothing else. I knew if there wasn’t something out there that could show me the way, I would be lost. I went to sleep, I don’t remember dreaming that night, but when I woke-up I had tears in my eyes and I looked at the ceiling and was filled with joy like I had never felt. Somehow I knew where to start, I had a drinking problem and at that moment I knew I had something to work for and it gave me the will to get out of that bed, make a call to my counselor and start my journey.

As I sit here, in what seems like a completely different world than I lived that night, I am amazed at what changes it brought to my life. 16 years later I am still on the path of sobriety and I have learned many lessons and have been on a journey that continues today. As part of my recovery I wrote journals of my experiences, feelings, and what I went through as I healed. I would like to share 10 years of these entries and the process I went through to bring me to where I am today. I feel that people who don’t go through a recovery process don’t have an understanding of what people actually experience. It is not just about quitting our addictions, it’s about finding out why we have them in the first place. And the people who have gone through a recovery program, I feel this is a way to know there are many others who are experiencing what you are going through. I feel that if you are reading this book, you are on a journey too, and if what I have experienced can help you in any way… . then we have shared a part of ourselves and we have grown! Enjoy, and may your journey be a wonderful experience for you.

My first journal entry is below, so many questions, so few answers at the time… . I was so confused. I was embarking on a search for someone I had never really taken the time to meet, to get to know and more important, to understand… . me!