My story involves a very unhappy person, with a low self esteem, feelings of worthlessness, and deep despair. I presented to the world that I was happy, but inside, I was dying one bit at a time. I was spiritually bankrupt. I drank to extreme excess, to oblivion, to numb the feelings I was experiencing.

At 20 years into my unhappy and oft-times verbally abusive marriage, I met a man at the docks where the sailboat upon which I was living was berthed. Thinking he reciprocated my feelings of love, I left my marriage to make myself available. It was in a most humiliating way that I was told by him that he did not share my feelings. I was devastated, lost touch with reality, and started a 3 month drinking and crying spree. It drove me to my bottom, such that I found myself seeking help with my drinking.

It took me a year or two into sobriety to begin to experience joy. At first, it was the clarity I experienced from not drinking or being hung over. Then, it was the feeling of not waking up with a severe hangover, like I’d done for the last seven years of my drinking. Joy came to me when I saw a child at play, or an older couple holding hands.

Now, in current day, I am in a state of awareness and because of that, I find joy in most everything throughout the day. It is generated by being centered in the moment and by an extreme feeling of gratitude, which allows me to look at everything around me with awe and wonder. The joy that this produces is indescribable.

I am aware and present for my life today and all that shows up. It is cause for celebration and joy. It is peace-evoking when I live with joy in my life. I describe the process through which I went to achieve joy and peace, in my book, “Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing.” It is a book of 42 photographs of wrought-iron gates and accompanying prose that reflects my own healing journey from oblivion to awareness of my Being. It has been said the book provides hope, inspiration, and empowerment to the soul in the corner who struggles. More information about the book can be seen at http://www.gatelady.com.