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A tragic, and yet ultimately hopeful memoir, about love and loss and finding a way to move forward, – a tug at the heart-strings and gentle reminder that out of collapse comes growth and new beginnings.
Donna is a middle-aged mother, with a high-powered corporate sales career, a twenty-something-year marriage, and a hole so deep inside it feels forever out of reach.
“When had I stopped caring? It didn’t happen at once, but slowly, like drips from a faucet.”
As Donna struggles to find release from a childhood filled with trauma and abuse, loneliness and fear (compounded by her daughter’s imminent departure for college), and the still-unresolved grief from the death of her cherished father, a weekend yoga retreat beckons, a small first step to a glimpse of perhaps better things.
And so begins a journey, somewhat reminiscent of Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat Pray Love”, filled with heart-ache, loss and yes, new beginnings (although of the sort spanning the entire spectrum from magical to debilitating) as Donna’s world expands and contracts with sudden and terrifying intensity, leaving her reeling in its path, searching for the connections that will help her find her joyful place.
“Before we can burn the karma of past experience away, this is usually a period of stress, where everything in our lives comes apart. To shake us aware. A chance to practice what we’ve learned.”
As Donna (and the reader) learns, there are no easy answers.
“The only way out is through the pain – through the whole reality of what we’ve lost. We have to feel it, so we take nothing else in life for granted.”
Intimate and searing, this is a book that will touch and teach, and perhaps console, as inevitably, we find ourselves on a path not so unlike that shared by the author.
“We must become more than what happens to us. Find joy wherever its hidden. Be grateful for every thing, every moment, and every being.”
My stop today on the #lovebookstours #blogtour for #WeveGottoStopMeetingLikeThis by @minidva
@KellyALacey
@lovebookstours
@igbooktours
A great big thank you to the publisher and the author for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.
