Tag Archives: tribe

happiness

Memory lane is a strange place 

Tonight I watched my boy play basketball in the high school my best friend went to a bazillion years ago. Lots of other things may have changed over the last 30 years, but not in the halls of that school. 

It was weird to take that walk down memory lane. We were best friends from birth until we hit the age where we got married and started having kids and then our friendship seemed to have run its course. A lifetime of things have happened since then and I hadn’t thought about her in a long time. 

It was weird, fun, sad to sit in that gym where we had watched games, gone to dances, crushed on boys, and laughed with our friends. It was having a little memory movie run in my head. 

That part of my life seems so long ago. At the time everything was so urgent and important and I’ve since forgotten so much of it. There were lots of good times though. 

And to add more weirdness to the weird memory lane path, we passed the hospice dad went to right before he died on our way to the school. Another thing I’ve worked hard to banish from my mind. So there was an unexpected hit of emotion before I even walked into the school. 

But there was happiness in there too. Bringing myself back to the present and being in the moment allowed me to watch my boy and his team run up and down the court. They have such great heart, and although they didn’t win they never quit. I drove my boy and his friend to and from the game and I loved listening to them discuss strategy and be so excited to play. It’s awesome. 

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Gummy worms

I spent the day with a horsey friend – I’ve known her since we were in our teens. So aside from being able to chat for hours about horses, we have really funny old memories that we share. 

When I picked her up she had a bag full of gummy worms, coke, dill pickle chips and cheese sandwiches – because that was our  staple lunch in our youth. Thank God we were so active – how did we ever eat like that?

I brought my sandwich home (you have  to crush the chips inside the sandwich) and gave it to the boy who at first was horrified but then declared it the best thing he’d eaten in ages. He said how do I not know this side of you mom??? Ummm because we can’t live on dill pickle chip and cheese sandwiches. 

It was fun to spend the day catching up on horse things and to laugh with a friend I’ve had since forever. Happiness – horse happiness. 

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In our own way

We have been really struggling in our healing process the last couple of weeks in our little family. I’m not sure why it is now that these issues are here, but they most certainly are. 

The kids have had several memories pop up bringing with them lots of questions and it’s meant a serious dose of anxiety for all three of us. 

Interestingly, not long after they started coming to me with questions and memories I found an old journal. It was one I wrote during the time we had the fight that ended our family (as it is now called). Sometimes I feel like maybe I’ve over exaggerated some of the things that went on in ourbhome, like time has made them more extreme than they were. Well, let me tell you… that is not the case at all. It was incredibly painful to transport myself back in time and relive the hurt, fear, terror, confusion, and many other things that were swirling around at that time. And to know that it went on for years… that this is the childhood they look back on… breaks my heart. 

Sometimes (like all the time) I feel like we should be over it all ready. We are home, we are safe, we should be fine. And yet we are not. One little thing happens and someone is triggered and we have to hold on for our lives to keep our balance. 

And then I remember that this is our healing journey. No one else is living it besides us, no one else gets to determine the path it takes. I’m learning every day to have faith that we are exactly where we are supposed to be. It’s tiring and tearful and I want to just be done with it, but we need to honor the process and give thanks that we are in the healing part of it. 

Happiness tonight was watching the boy play his basketball game. Every time he’s out there I see his confidence grow. He is such an amazing young man and has incredible strength. It brings me such joy to see him finding himself, knowing that he is in a faith filled spiritual journey of his own. 

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Part of the community 

We had our community general meeting tonight and I volunteered to be on the board (or was elected or whatever the proper term is). I did this years ago, before we moved, and it was a great way to get to know our neighbours. I’m thinking it will again as we are settling back in. 

Our community is pretty special, given that we are almost all related or our t families have been here for well over 100 years. There’s a unique bond that comes with that and I’m so grateful to be a part of it. 

It was happiness getting to see some neighbours I haven’t seen in a while. It’s happiness knowing I can give a little back to the community that has been so good to me. It’s happiness knowing this is our tribe. 

It is where we are from 

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Hippie chicks in the mountains 

Today I was treated to a morning in Canmore with a dear friend. We had business to do, but afterwards we had enough time to walk the streets and have lunch. How lucky am I to get to be in the mountains two days in a row? 

It was beautiful and clear and the only issue we had was being stuck in traffic 


Yep, we got stuck behind a zamboni while driving through town. If that doesn’t scream I’m in Canada, I don’t know what does. 

I treasure this friendship with this dear soul whose crazy lines up with my crazy. We have a lot of fun together, but we get each other on a really deep level and that’s pretty rare. It brings me happiness and gratitude. 

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Sweet Sunday 

I took the girl and her friend up to Canmore today so they could go for a swim. I love being surrounded by the mountains and to me it’s a no brainer when they ask to go to the pool – Calgary or Canmore – the mountains will always win. 

I love that she’s building strong girl friendships, and that she’s very mindfully choosing her friends. There is a lot of thought that goes into the girls she builds her bonds with – and she makes really good choices. That is happiness. Building that tribe of women that walk you through life is huge. 

The girls earned money babysitting yesterday and couldn’t wait to spend some of it at the candy shop. It’s kind of a ritual. 

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Where we are at 

My mom, sister and I did a little house organizing today. In the midst of the not-fun part of the job, we discovered some old photographs. Photos of when mom was in her 20s, old photos of people at the ranch, golden forgotten memories. It was fun to see mom get excited about old times and to hear a few stories. 

It really hit me today we were looking at old family treasures how long and settled our family has been in this exact spot. I often still feel the effect of our gypsy life and I love those moments of grounding that remind me that I’m exactly where I am supposed to be. 

We had a family supper tonight – mom, me, my sister, and all the kids – sitting around the dining room table. The perfect place to be building new memories for the next generation. My sister recently had turned into quite the cook, and it was awesome to get to enjoy her creations. 

Happiness today was weird. It was happiness going through old family things. It was weird because there have been so many changes and I feel like I’m running to catch up. But there is huge joy and gratitude for being exactly where I am right now. 

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Another trip around the sun

Today is my birthday. Two years ago I started this happiness journey with 44 days of happiness. The life I was living was completely different from the one I have today. We were living in SW Virginia, I was so unhappy, scared, alone, fearful, anxious, and lost. I decided to start looking for something every single day that made me happy and since I was turning 44 I would do it for 44 days.

When I started it was really difficult. Some days the only thing that I could find that made me happy was seeing the heron on my morning walk. There was not a lot of joy in my life and I had to work really hard to find any kind of sunshine. After the 44 days I felt a lot better, but knew I had much more work to do to get to where I wanted to be. So, I kept up with my happiness seeking – looking for a moment of happiness in each and every day.

The last two years have seen huge changes in my life both externally and internally. The kids and I have come home, we are safely and happily living back in the middle of our tribe. We still have struggles, but we have a grounding that I could never manage to create before. It may be a slow pace, but I feel us all moving ahead on this journey of healing and discovering.

Every year I have set an intention for the upcoming year. For 46 my intention is to believe – to have faith and trust that what I am doing is the right thing, to listen to God to know that I am on the right path, to believe in myself.

Also to remember that I gave all of my fucks away in 2016 and that I no longer have any more fucks to give. I am not going to spend hours stressing over things that could happen, things that are happening, things that have happened. I’m just going to let it be (and if you know me in real life and are laughing hysterically right now – remember this is an intention. I am a work in progress).

My happiness moment today: I had supper with my kids and my mom which was special and I treasure that. I don’t mean that lightly, after 10 years of being away to spend my birthday supper in grandma’s kitchen with my family is a big freaking deal.  After, as we were munching on our cupcakes, we shared memories of my childhood and of the kids’ childhood. We seem to have broken into this space where they want to talk about happy childhood memories and that brings me a lot of pleasure. For a long time no one wanted to talk about anything from the past, I’m glad that we can bring back some of the happy times. It’s also the best day of the year to be on Facebook and I was humbled and flattered by all the friends who sent me well wishes. I am a very blessed person.

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Someone to take you home 


We said goodbye to my godmother today at her funeral in Cochrane. It was a small gathering of loved ones but there were so many memories and so much love brought into that church. 

When I was a kid and Cochrane was still a small town,  there were three families who joined together  because of their businesses being side by side. There was Mackay’s Ice Cream, my parent’s  law firm, and the Doctor’s office. As a result, the Mackays the Ramsays and the Mcquittys  have been family friends for as long as I can remember. 

In the last two years all of us “kids” (in our 40s and 50s now) have lost a parent and have all held each other up in love and support. It’s been a rough couple of years for a lot of people. 

I didn’t really get a lot out of the funeral service in the church. I’m not sure why, it could have just been the emotional place I was in. I just found it didn’t give me what I was looking for in terms of supporting my faith and having some closure. 

I decided to go to the graveyard for the internment ceremony and I’m really glad I did. She was buried in the old graveyard in town where all the other old Cochrane family members are. My grandparents and the Mackay parents among them – as well as uncle George (auntie Mary’s husband, who ironically also died on Christmas Day years ago). 

There was a lot of comfort in knowing she was being laid to rest among family and friends. Normally I’m not a fan of graveyards, but I’ve always found a lot of comfort at that one. When I was a kid my grandma used to walk me through it and tell me about family members and neighbours who were buried there. 

The priest in the church service kept talking about how death was painful. I prefer to think of it another way, in these words from Robyn Mackay after losing her mom just a few months before I lost my dad:

 Love, is one of the forces in life that leads all of us directly into suffering, because we will ultimately lose every person and everything that we love.  

After dad died, MOM is the one who taught me to be fearless enough to love anyway, without conditions, and take the great risk that loving HER, would break my heart. 
I have blogged this passage before and I return to it often to find comfort during times of loss. They’re wise words. Loving someone will hurt, but we need to be fearless enough to do it anyway. Otherwise you end up living a life without love, and that’s a pretty empty existence. 

My happiness moment was standing in the graveyard feeling the love and comfort of those beloved members of my tribe who have gone on before me. And as a secondary, more badass moment, Jenna and I found some kind of joy in being able to run red lights through town as part of the funeral procession. 

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Memory Flow


I had another CST (Cranial Sacral Treatment) today in Cochrane with my amazing, healing therapist. I’m so blessed that I have this community of healers around me. The last time I had the treatment done I had a head explosion of word vomit flow out of my brain. All that mental anxiety that was running around in my head just burst out (quietly thank goodness) and left me. Knowing that this time would most likely bring different results I was excited to discover what shifts would occur today.

This time was all about memory flowing. One thing I learned a few weeks ago when I had my transformational acupuncture treatment was that I tried to leave my body during times of pain and stress. It was a coping mechanism I developed in the years I lived with Mr. X when he was raging, and it was done very consciously. I was aware that I couldn’t leave physically – I had no money, no family around, was in a different country,  and I absolutely could not leave the kids. He would rage and then leave, but I could not go anywhere. There was no way I was leaving the house without my children. So, I learned to leave my body. I did it to avoid pain and hurt and anxiety. But if you think that leaving your body does not cause anxiety then you don’t know what you are talking about! However, it was the best coping mechanism I had at the time.

Since that acupuncture treatment I have been working very hard to stay inside my body, to stay grounded, to stay present, even when things are not comfortable. Today when the memories started flowing my first impulse was to book on out of there. But, I breathed, relaxed, and let it flow.

The memories that came were of our years spent in Rhode Island. Things started to fall apart in Quebec, but in Rhode Island everything really went to hell. It was hard to have those times that I have worked so hard to block come flooding back into my consciousness. The interesting thing about CST though is they come, they’re there, and they flow by without me getting really freaked out about them. There was a certain amount of comfort and calming in acknowledging some of those events and ugly times. It’s like my body has been yelling at me pay attention this shit really happened, it’s stuck inside you and my brain has been all no, just stuff it down, it’s not really there, we don’t want to feel that.

I also had some good times both with the kids and with my friends in those years. By blocking out the bad memories I also blocked out all the good ones as well. It was a significant part of the kids’ childhood and I want them to have memories that make them smile. I want to be able to talk about playdates, trips to the beach, day visits to Boston and remember that there were good times along with the scary ones. It’s good to have those come back.

On a personal healing level, my CST today was a huge happiness moment. It healed a lot, let out a lot, let flow some good and some bad. On a family happiness moment, I returned home this afternoon to see my daughter and my niece cross country skiing through the yard. They had been over to the neighbours along the ridge (where my dad used to love to walk), had tried downhill skiing on the buffalo jumps (I’m glad I wasn’t there to see that, but I sure remember doing it as a kid), and were laughing their way home. What a great childhood this ranch provides. What a great, safe, loving home we have here with our tribe.

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