This is the inspiring memoir of a woman raised within the cultural confines of a Midwestern Catholic upbringing in the 1940s and '50s, and her life's journey as her consciousness awakens. Her path takes her through the expectations of the church, a painful marriage with an undiagnosed bipolar husband, and her food addiction. Desperately looking for guidance and answers to her innermost questions, she encounters a series of "gurus"-bringing her unexpected but valuable lessons that she integrates along the way. And at the age of sixty-three, she begins to reinvent herself-and a beautiful, gratifying life of her own begins to unfold. Interwoven throughout her story are poems that deeply express her feelings in a way that the reader won't forget. This true story of a woman who learns to come to terms with herself, thereby opening the door to real freedom, will benefit readers of all ages.