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    Room 32: A Memoir
    Room 32: A Memoir
    Room 32: A Memoir
    Ebook175 pages2 hours

    Room 32: A Memoir

    By Diane E. Banasiak

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    About this ebook

    Room 32 is one womans story about the power we all have within us to create and to transform our lives. Diane begins her story on the south side of Chicago in a strict Polish Catholic environment where sins of the flesh are real and admonished. As she grows and develops, Diane wants to integrate her spirituality and sexuality; however, in her Catholic world Diane is given very little room to do so. In puberty, a crisis erupts, and Diane has nowhere to turn, until she discovers Room 32. In Room 32, a drama classroom at Holy Jesus High School, Dianes life begins to change. Diane gets the taste of a different kind of existence, and in that room she learns about the power to create. Join Diane on her journey as she takes steps on the dance floor of life, and be encouraged to love and to celebrate your life as you dance along with Diane.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBalboa Press
    Release dateFeb 26, 2013
    ISBN9781452553962
    Room 32: A Memoir
    Author

    Diane E. Banasiak

    Diane Banasiak is a teacher, speaker and life coach in Lexington, Kentucky. Diane uses her dynamic energy and great listening skills to motivate university students and to support her clients as they make important transitions in life. She believes that everyone can have a rich and fulfilling life, but in order to have that rich life we must make choices. Clarity is what Diane can offer her clients, and over time her clients get a clearer picture of what they want and who they want to become. Diane has her own coaching business here in Lexington, and she can be found on the web at www.justdiane.com In her free time, Diane enjoys quiet times with her partner and friend Asmund Vego, cycling adventures all around Kentucky and a vibrant yoga practice.

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      Book preview

      Room 32 - Diane E. Banasiak

      Copyright © 2012 Diane Banasiak

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Balboa Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      Balboa Press

      A Division of Hay House

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.balboapress.com

      1-(877) 407-4847

      ISBN: 978-1-4525-5395-5 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4525-5396-2 (e)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      Balboa Press rev. date: 2/22/2013

      Contents

      A Few Opening Comments

      Introduction

      Chapter One Spirit Takes Form

      Chapter Two The Room with Many Unanswered Questions

      Chapter Three The Room with My Family of Origin

      Chapter Four The Room of Deep Desires

      Chapter Five The Room with My Role Model

      Chapter Six The Catholic Room

      Chapter Seven Tasting a Different Kind of Existence in Room 32

      Chapter Eight A Room at the Starkowski House

      Chapter Nine The Room with Boys and Dating Partners and Prayer

      Chapter Ten Wandering from Room to Room

      Chapter Eleven A Room at the University

      Chapter Twelve Another Room – Life in the Convent

      Chapter Thirteen Settling into a Room in Aurora

      Chapter Fourteen Challenges in that Room in Aurora

      Chapter Fifteen The Classroom and the Mission

      Chapter Sixteen The Room Where Francis and Claire Lived

      Chapter Seventeen University Life – Room 32 Resurfaces Again

      Chapter Eighteen A Room at St. Claire College

      Chapter Nineteen A Very Dark Room

      Chapter Twenty The Room with the Jewish Doctor

      Chapter Twenty-One The Room Where My Secret Lies

      Chapter Twenty-Two The Darkness Grows

      Chapter Twenty-Three A Very Unique Kind of Room

      Chapter Twenty-Four A Room with the Mighty Mustangs

      Chapter Twenty-Five What I Learned in My First Classroom

      Chapter Twenty-Six A Room Where I Could Talk About God

      Chapter Twenty-Seven A Room with a Female Administrative Team

      Chapter Twenty-Eight A Room in a Suburban Catholic School

      Chapter Twenty-Nine Reconsidering Jesus

      Chapter Thirty A Room with a Good Partner and a Good Friend

      Chapter Thirty-One A Room at a Catholic Seminary

      Chapter Thirty-Two A Room in Appalachia

      Chapter Thirty-Three A Room of Body Work

      Chapter Thirty-Four Spirituality in a Room at Boston College

      Chapter Thirty-Five Internalizing Room 32

      Chapter Thirty-Six A Room at the Convent and a Room to Explore

      Chapter Thirty-Seven Catholic Campus Ministry

      Chapter Thirty-Eight Working with Students in Our Campus Ministry Room

      Chapter Thirty-Nine The Room with a Conservative Priest

      Chapter Forty Leaving the Catholic Church

      Chapter Forty-One The Room with Death – My Father’s Death

      Chapter Forty-Two The Room Filled with New Dating Partners

      Chapter Forty-Three The Presbyterian Room

      Chapter Forty-Four The Room Called Hell

      Chapter Forty-Five The Room with Many Avatars

      Chapter Forty-Six The Room Where I Was Able to Think for Myself

      Chapter Forty-Seven The Room with My New Business

      Chapter Forty-Eight The Room Called Ahava

      Chapter Forty-Nine A Room with More Work to Do

      Epilogue: On the Way to Enlightenment

      A Special Word of Thanksgiving

      About The Author

      41026.png

      When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

      ~ Andre Lorde (1934-1992)

      41029.png

      Room 32 is dedicated to my students. I started living

      and dancing in the classroom. I am most grateful.

      A Few Opening Comments

      Room 32 is my own creation. It comes from my own life. However, I have decided to change the names of many of the people and places you will encounter in this book in order to be sensitive to those who may not want to see their names in print. I also admit this story has a lot to do with my perspective—my own vision. If you ask others, perhaps they would indeed tell you a different story. What was and is true for me, may not have been true for my sisters or neighbors or friends.

      Writing and publishing my story is an important part of my journey, and as with all stories I know it will make a difference in the community. However, my intention with Room 32 is to share my own journey as a way to help others along their own path. We all go through challenges and difficulties in this life, but we are not alone on our journey. There have been others who have traveled the same roads we have traveled.

      Furthermore, we have all made errors and taken a few missteps; it is just part of being human. But those errors and missteps are only a small part of who we are. We can all create something out of our darkest hour; we just have to be willing to be transformed along the way, and transformations are never easy.

      I hope my story will be a blessing to you, dear reader. May this blessing be one that encourages you, inspires you and helps you to cherish the wonderful life that is uniquely yours to express and to enjoy.

      Introduction

      We all have a story to tell, one that needs to be told.

      Sometimes we tell that story for others, but most of the time we tell our story to make sense of things, to put things in perspective, to understand the why behind our actions.

      I am telling this story in an attempt to embrace all of me, the parts I like and the parts I don’t like. It has been a long journey, but it feels so good to get my story out in the open and to celebrate my life, even if it has been filled with errors and missteps. I have taken many wrong turns and made some poor choices, but my biggest error was this: I looked for love outside myself. I thought someone else could save me, but I did not need a savior. I simply needed to love and embrace myself, flaws and all. When I did this, when I established a deep abiding love for myself and a generous self-acceptance, my world changed. Simply put, I discovered my own power. Today, living from this powerful place is what matters most to me.

      My transformation began in high school in Room 32, which was my drama room. In that room, I discovered a place where dreams were indulged, characters created and re-created, and life was a dynamic process born from the imagination. Cultivating believable characters was not an accident. Characters came alive in Room 32 because an actor or an actress could breathe life into the pages of a script and thus transform a platform or a stage into a whole new world.

      Hope, my drama teacher and coach, inspired my fellow students and I to engage in a process of becoming, of creating. That process would culminate with a drama performance meant to inspire and entertain, but Hope made it very clear to us that the life of the characters we created did not end with the drama performance. We were instructed to capture only a period of time on stage, knowing, seeing and believing that the story and the life of our character went on even after our final exit from the stage.

      In many ways, I want to re-create a period of time in my life for you. However, the story you read here began before the words were written down, and the story continues long after you get to the final pages of this book. This slice of time is meant to inform and underscore a transformation that took place within me and around me.

      But transformations are intangible and ineffable, and they are hard to capture on paper. That is why story seems to be the best way for me to speak about my transformation, about the new awareness that has captured my mind and liberated my heart.

      In Room 32, I got a glimpse of this vision: we have the power within ourselves to find our way and make our way in this world. We create our lives, and our lives move and unfold in the direction of the scripts we hold and choose to embrace.

      Proclaiming myself as creator has been my greatest victory, my brightest achievement, for I am at the center of my life—my life moves and unfolds in the direction of the scripts I choose to entertain. However, most of my life I held on to what I call the church girl script. Essentially, I gave my power over to the Roman Catholic Church, and I was at the mercy of powerful forces outside myself. The powerful, awesome and transcendent God of the Catholic church overtook me and, at times, was ready to crush me. That was the script I held for most of my life, the vision I chose to embrace and to proclaim.

      This story is the celebration of a woman who took the journey within and found her own inner sanctuary, which I call Room 32. Finding an inner sanctuary has liberated me and inspired me to embark on a powerful new destiny.

      What will the future bring? Only time will tell. For now, let us take a look at a slice of my life, which I have come to love, embrace, and celebrate as unique—and me. The journey is not over, and I am still in the process of writing and creating the next chapters, but I want to share with you what happened and how I came to discover a deep, abiding sanctuary within me.

      I hope the same thing can happen to you, dear reader. I hope that you will find a way to come to terms with your life and your choices—to love yourself and to love yourself fiercely. That reconciliation with yourself is all that matters and once you find a home within yourself, then you can find a home almost anywhere, and anyone and everyone can become your family.

      Chapter One

      Spirit Takes Form

      I think we all have a spiritual purpose in life that manifests itself in different ways. For me, it was a major focus. While my friends and family members were busy sewing, cooking and designing things, I was trying to figure out how I could become the navigator of my life when the spiritual realm and the spiritual world held my attention and captured my mind and my heart. I often wondered why I couldn’t be like everyone else.

      Like Jacob in the Old Testament, I came out of the womb wrestling with God. I wrestled because deep down I preferred the spiritual world, yet somehow I found myself in a physical form wondering just how I got here and why. This flesh-and-bone existence was strangely appealing, quite exciting, and very mysterious. How to navigate this physical world was my challenge.

      The physical awareness of my body set the stage for my wrestling match, and it was at puberty that the match became pronounced. Did I know that I was wrestling with God back then? Probably not. My body was changing, and I was going to mature and develop, to find a way to make a living and to find a husband. However, I often wondered how.

      Growing up in a strict, Catholic environment put me strangely at odds with the world. I grew up in a religious world in which the Mass was in Latin, the priest was the religious leader in the community, and he

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