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Up to now, my blog posts have consisted of excerpts from the writings that I have done for my book, Taking the Mask Off … My Journey from Dr. Seuss to the Bible. In this post, I skip a beat and focus on a journey from which I recently returned, a 500-mile (779-kilometer) journey over three mountain ranges covering two countries that resulted in the most wonderful 32 days I’ve experienced since the birth of my children. It was a journey that taught me life-changing lessons: Lessons that, in truth, I’ve been told before in other ways but had put a mask on to hide. Lessons that had I followed, I wouldn’t have had to deal with much of the trauma and disappointment I experienced throughout my life. This journey on foot, commonly called the Camino Frances Pilgrimage and done by millions before me and about 300,000 from around the world each year, changed my life. So, together, let’s condense my 500-mile journey to 20 minutes and walk through the words below together in my post. I’m going to let you into my life so that you may see what I found inside myself, not what I did. For those who read Taking the Mask Off, consider the book the cake and the Camino Frances, well, the icing. A little background. For the reader not familiar with the Camino Frances, officially called the Camino de Santiago, let me briefly explain what it is. The Camino de Santiago, typically called The Way of St. James, is one of many pilgrimage routes throughout Europe converging at the foot of the cathedral in the city of Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. Around 1830, a hermit named Pelayo followed unusually bright stars to a field where he found a decapitated skeleton. Pelayo contacted…