I AM an UNFINISHED Woman.

Journey
1. a traveling from one place to another, usually taking a rather long time; trip: a journey down the east coast.

2. a distance, course, or area traveled or suitable for traveling: an east coast journey.

3. a period of travel: a week's journey.

4. passage or progress from one stage to another: the journey to success.

verb (used without object)

5. to make a journey; travel.
6. make this journey, with "Journey".

End

1  a : the part of an area that lies at the boundary the southern most point of Playalinda Beach; b (1) : a point that marks the extent of something ...had enough; (2) : the point where something ceases to exist <world without end> the past; c : the extreme or last part lengthwise tip of the iceberg; d : the terminal unit of something spatial that is marked off by units e : a player stationed at the extremity of a line (as in football)

Every day is a journey and it now feels like home to me.  I am enjoying the journey because it's "mine".

here's my journey's end

 My Journey's End is simply the end of beach access at the south end of Playalinda Beach.  Translated it means pretty beach and it is.  Just past that fence is the secure area for Kennedy Space Center.  As I've mentioned before, in the distance, there is a shuttle on the launch pad (almost direct center).

Last year, I was going through a period where, as best as I can describe it is: I was sitting on the fence, neither here nor there.  The pickets were hurting my butt!  It was dragging me down. I was so down {I've been down so long, it looks like up to me!} and knew I didn't want to be there but didn't know what to do to get out of it.  I didn't know anymore, what I wanted to be when I grow up. Life for me had changed AGAIN and I didn't know what to do with it.  Many of us wait to be right where I was but it wasn't in my plan yet. 

I left New York with my rottie, Journey, (yes, that's his name).  With what ever would fit in a U-Haul, my car in tow and a job transfer with Linens 'n Things,  south bound on I-95 we went.   In the craziness (and there was lots of it),  I had to return the truck in Jupiter, FL  but live and work in Vero Beach. ..not close to each other.   After being there just 6 months, I found out on-line that the store was closing.  I stayed till closing, took a week off and transferred to Jupiter (right where I kinda started).  I had plans to go to New York for my sister and niece babies showers and while sitting in the airport on my smart phone read something about the store I was in was closing... nothing I could do about it then.  Long story short... Linens 'n Things was out of business and all stores closed before the end of the year in 2008.   I nearly managed to stay there on unemployment until I moved here in September 2009.  There was a snag with that.  Journey was too big for park rules.  I don't talk about that very much at all 'cause it rips my heart out still but I have a little Chihuahua, Heidi, now that thinks she is a rottie!  I digress...

I love to read and I'm always looking for a good read.  I don't know how but I stumbled across a book : 

A Weekend to Change Your Life by Joan Anderson [Find your authentic self after a lifetime of being all things to all people]

I like Amazon, and that you can usually read excerpts.  Take a look: a Weekend to Change Your Life -Authentic Self  My sister has going through her phase of grown kids and lost job too, so I sent her a copy at the same time.  Hell, let's see what a weekend can do.  I didn't have anything else to do.  Then I saw all these other books Joan wrote too.

Joan Anderson is a journalist and the bestselling author of A Year by the Sea,  An Unfinished Marriage,  A Walk on the Beach, A Weekend to Change Your Life and The Second Journey.   I also know she is writing another book.  She lives with her husband on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and conducts weekend workshops for women around the country.

I ordered them all!  I got "A Weekend..." first and started reading it.  Then the others came and I put them in order and start reading the first one:

A Year by the Sea [Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman]

That was it!!  I was hooked!  I AM an UNFINISHED WOMAN!

"I am as unfinished as the shoreline along the beach, meant to transcend myself again and again."  ~Joan Anderson

Joan was exactly where I was in so many ways but most importantly as a woman.  I laughed with her, understood her, and found people I know in her life.  I gobbled up that book like there was no tomorrow.  I started to read her second book: 

An Unfinished Marriage.  Now seriously, I've been married and divorced twice, so I did think about skipping it and just send it along to my sister (who will be married 32 years this year...wow!).  Even as I began reading it, I'm thinking to myself: yeah, OK, let's see... Joan hooked me in again.  OK, so I don't have a husband, not even a boy friend, but I have other relationships and friends that matter and maybe it's about me as a woman - maybe feeling settled - maybe being me, in my own skin.  

I was reading for a while and taking it all in.  Then there was one of those light bulb moments.... ah ha ~  now, understand, I was getting better at going through the motions but very much in a real good fog...And it lifted!!  ~hallelujah~ It happened in  a moment.  I forget either January or February but by February I was myself but better.  I was full steam ahead...only draw back: my body couldn't keep up with my mind.  My mind  thought we were 30 but my 56 year old body was disabled and out of shape. 

I am still reading the second book, An Unfinished Marriage.  I dropped it and lost my place so I've been re-reading/scanning page by page to figure out where I was but refreshing as I go.

I will tell you that so far, everything takes place on the beach of Cape Cod...who would not love that... and you are immediately transformed to be walking the beach, working the fish market and most definitely swimming with the seals!

I hope you will take a look at these books and give them a shot.  Joan found her way and has had to have helped millions of 'unfinished women'  just like me...just like you?