On my way...

Even though I started the site just a few days ago, the idea has been on my mind for a couple of years. This is Mission Serenity. What does that mean? Simply said, I am on a mission to reach a level of serenity in my life that creates a peacefulness I’ve been seeking for a long time. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had some type of anxiety and depression, and, more recently (officially 5 years ago), PTSD. Maybe I’ll go into detail or maybe I won’t. It isn’t that relevant here. What is relevant is the mission.
How did I come up with the name Serenity? THAT started in June 2022 while I was attending the Tulane University Center for Brain Health IOP for veterans. One of the activities was trauma-focused yoga. For meditation, I was trying to come up with a word to focus on and kept coming up with “Balance”, but I wasn’t sure that was my word. Later, our instructor gave each of us a mala bead bracelet to help with meditation. A few days later, as she explained what it means when one breaks, mine broke! She immediately through me the one she was wearing. On it was a “Grace” charm. So, here I was, stuck between “balance” and “grace”. I desperately needed balance in my life, but I also knew I had to give myself, and others some grace.
The following week, believe it or not, as I was telling Sean about how my old bracelet broke while learning of the very meaning of breaking beads, my NEW bracelet broke, and the beads went flying everywhere! We had just received some devastating news the night before and, when this happened, I just didn’t know how to make sense of anything. It seemed like life was falling apart. Over the next couple of month, through making travel arrangements, funeral arrangements, leaving my service dog with friends, and figuring out how to tell our kids that their older brother had just passed away, I was laid off from my job. Balance. Grace. I needed something more. WE needed something more.
Then, one of the participants at the Tulane program sent me a new bracelet: it was a mala bead bracelet with a “balance” charm attached. I loved it and I was still searching…still mourning…still lost.
Fast forward a few months (still in the same land of confusion): Sean and I bought a travel trailer. We had rented some RVs for specific trips, but decided it cost too much to do that every year, so we decided to buy our own. Of course we had to name her.
As time went on, as it does for the entire universe, we continued facing more challenges. My beautiful mom, who was on hospice, seemed to be getting worse, and by Christmas, was bedridden. I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could. Since I had recently gotten a new remote job, I was able to go spend a few weeks in Louisiana and work at the same time. On the drive to Louisiana, my mind was scrolling through name ideas in my head when I heard something on the radio. One word jumped out: Serenity. I liked the word so much that I proposed that as the name for our travel trailer. The word continued to bounce around in my head; it stuck with me. It was then I realized that I had been searching for serenity for a long time: a state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled. So…we named our travel trailer Serenity and I set out on a mission to achieve serenity in my life!
So, I’d like to introduce you to Mission Serenity.