RoseBerry Retreats

I climbed the ladder.

I started at the bottom and found my way up.

I pulled myself up through lack of education, poverty, unequal treatment, uneven pay scales, discrimination, unfinished promises, insulting suggestions, lies, glass ceilings and everything in between. Ageism was the final straw. I ran teams, managed nationally and internationally and built entire business channel divisions. Only once did I call a meeting in which men stood when I entered the room, and my seat was at the head of the table. I have been through it all, and I remained in one industry in which I loved the primary subject but eventually discovered it was no longer the main focus and I was certain I didn't know how to do anything else. 

 

After the realization that I was lost I began to question my own focus, my own values. Had I climbed the ladder through my children's childhood and skipped the most important steps with my husband? Had I always been reaching for something so far away, I was unable to live in the "now"? Was I constantly striving for approval, acceptance, recognition?

 

I had planned a much needed gardening trip to France, but my employer told me I wasn't going to be able to go due to a last minute meeting they had scheduled. The stress piling up was unimaginable, my health began to turn. My doctor said "you can have these stress issues in France just as easily as you can here, but you may be able to find yourself in France."

 

I had a gardening friend tell me that traveling alone was a very important experience~I left for France that week. I stepped on that plane as the most insecure person I had ever met. I was alone. I didn't know who I was, and I had no idea where I was going. I rode trains with little memory of the process, I walked through Paris lugging my suitcase for miles to my tiny hotel. The elevator didn't work and my room was on the top floor. I fell asleep exhausted and then there was a fire in the hotel and I had to evacuate. 

 

The next morning I missed my scheduled train to the Manior for the gardening retreat and when I finally got on the next train-finding my car and seat was another experience,  again alone.

 

Three hours later little did I know when I walked through that arched teal doorway covered in beautiful fall foliage I would be spending a week with fifteen women who would unknowingly change my life...

I found myself in France.