Cheryl Rice - Where Have I Been All My Life?: A Journey Toward Love and Wholeness

Any woman raised on a diet of people-pleasing, and fairy-tale-believing will adore Rices memoir.

CAROLINE ADAMS MILLER, author of Creating

Your Best Life, My Name is Caroline, and Positively Caroline

A very powerful, moving journey of a woman who eloquently bears her soul with extraordinary candor both as a child, mother, wife, and successful career woman in a way that is truly inspirational.

JUDITH VON SELDENECK, Chairman and CEO,

Diversified Search

If youve known for a long time that you need to open the door on the past in order to find your hopeful future, this book is for you. With tenderness, candor, and unflinching honesty, Rice shows us how to examine our lives at those key moments when being in the dark is the only way to safely find our way home again. A perfect companion during times of transition, loss, or self-discovery, Where Have I Been All My Life? offers a narrative of curiosity and courage that will inspire any woman at a crossroads, trying to make sense of her wild and precious life.

JEN LEMEN, co-founder of Hopeful World

Where Have I Been All My Life? is a beautifully written and courageous story told with grace, humor, and grit. Anyone interested in living a life of authenticity and self-compassion will greatly benefit from reading this compelling book.

MIKE ROBBINS, author of Nothing Changes Until You Do

Where Have I Been All My Life? vividly describes what is not often disclosed in books about grief: how losing ones mother can cause a woman to question everything about her life and herself. In the journey that is this book, Rice confronts her longings for the unattainable, her compulsion to take care of everyone elseeven her therapistand her inability to fully accept herself. From the very first page, I could relate. I know the longing and the self-loathing Rice writes of all too well, and I suspect many other women do too. With humor and grace, and through the process of crafting this poignant and humane book, Rice accepts loss, recognizes the impossibility of long-held fantasies, and is able to finally take in real love.

DEBORAH A. LOTT, author of In Session: The Bond Between

Women and Their Therapists and Dont Go Crazy Without Me

Rices book captures the essence of looking outside for affirmation, for approval, for acceptance. Her journey is a familiar one for women. Until we love ourselves, there is never enough. Its an inside job, and her story will help other women tell their stories as well.

MARSHA CLARK, Founder, Marsha Clark & Associates

Cheryl Rice is a fantastic writer. I was completely engaged from page one. I love her work and you will too.

NANCY SLONIM ARONIE, author of Writing From

the Heart: Tapping the Power of Your Inner Voice

Where Have I Been All My Life? is a powerfully compelling memoir. Any woman who aspires to be a leader in her own life will value this heartfelt book.

SALLY STETSON, Principal, Salveson Stetson Group

In her moving memoir, Where Have I Been All My Life?, Rice offers a tender and generous voice to the personal struggle for worthinessan issue that most professional women grapple with but few dare discuss.

JENNIFER A. CHAMBERS, MD, MBA, FACP,

Chief Medical Officer, Capital Blue Cross

Where Have I Been All My Life? is a powerful memoir that will be meaningful to anyone who has experienced the deep loss of a loved one. We are comforted and inspired by Rices journey from grief to inner strength, love and wholeness.

MICHELE W. DALY, Executive Director,

Womens Resource Center

Where Have I Been All My Life? is a source of hope and courage for anyone willing to honestly look inside him or herself to discover a more fulfilling life. Rice bares it all to give us a model of what it takes to acknowledge the psychological complexes driving our behavior and forgive the parents who unknowingly planted them there.

MICHAEL NAGLE, Owner, Michael Nagle

Consulting Group

WHERE HAVE I BEEN ALL MY LIFE?

Copyright 2014 by Cheryl Rice

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published 2014
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-63152-917-7
e-ISBN: 978-1-63152-918-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014936411

Permission for opening quote by Terri St. Cloud
of Bone Sigh Arts; www.bonesigharts.com

For information, address:
She Writes Press
1563 Solano Ave #546
Berkeley, CA 94707

This is a work of nonfiction. However, to disguise the identities of some individuals, some names, identifying details, and chronological details have been changed.

For
Mom and Dad

She could never go back and make

some of the details pretty.

All she could do was move forward

and make the whole beautiful.

Terri St. Cloud

I entered the hospital room where my mother was being treated for pneumonia and dehydrationside effects of the aggressive doses of chemotherapy and radiation she was enduring to squelch the stage IV lung cancer that had been found two months earlier. She was just sixty-seven years old. I was the self-appointed quarterback of her care team and made it my priority to be physically and emotionally present for her every day of the six precious months between her diagnosis and her death.

Back in the hospital room, before I could even ask how she was feeling, Mom propped herself up on her pillow, looked straight into my eyes, and said, Well, honey, now you can write your book.

I was stunned. Though Mom knew of my long-buried dream of writing a book one day, she also knew the dream was tamped down tightly by paralyzing fears and doubts that I had anything worthwhile to say. I couldnt recall the last time we had discussed it.

What would my book be about, Mom? I asked, genuinely curious.

How to help your mother die.

Well, I wrote a book. But its not about helping my mother die. Its about helping myself live. Its about how losing my best friend, the person whose voice I trusted most in this world, called me forth to befriend myself and claim my own voice in deep, unprecedented, and vital ways. And its about learning to exchange a fantasy life, fueled by a stark fear of intimacy, for a real life fueled by the vulnerability and messiness of real love.

I was forty-five years old. I had a three-years-new marriage to a handsome, charming, kind-hearted man with two wonderful children whom I was privileged to help raise. I had a vibrant career as a leadership and life coach. I had my mom and dad living close byaccomplished and wonderful people I cherished, respected, and in many ways idolized. Aside from the chaos our new puppy caused, my life looked quite stable and very good. I told myself I was blessed despite nagging feelings to the contrary.