Meditation Day 1. Your voice is very calming and I love the sounds of the waves. When I opened my eyes on that ordinary day in the future, I woke up by myself, no one else was in the home with me. It was a sunny day and I felt peaceful and calm, and warmth from the sun. My hair was up and I was wearing this old pink knitted sweater I love. When I looked out the window tho, there was nothing...no view. I wonder if it's because my future feels so unclear that I can't even visualize seeing anything out the window. I walked to the kitchen and made myself a chai tea latte, then sat in a comfy chair by the sunny window with a book in my hand. It was quiet. I felt really happy. I kept thinking about my kids, maybe they were still in bed, but I didn't see it hear anyone else. I was working from home, but not at that particular time. It was just morning and me enjoying my peaceful routine...I didn't see anything but that. Warm window, warm drink, book, calm.

My Story: I was raised with two amazing and loving parents. My childhood was full of family and friends and the best neighbors. My dad was very soft hearted, my mum was the more firm parent. As a mom, when I think back to home I was raised, my mum's was very loving, but I find after having kids and thinking back, she was not the most sympathetic human, she didn't let things slide and held a large level of control. I've taken more if my mum's personality with my dad's softness. I find as I get older there is more fire than softness these days. My parents dropped the divorce bomb on us, Boxing Day, the year I was 13. We did not see it coming. We were like the Brady bunch, I only ever heard one fight, so that was definitely a shock, and how it played out for a while wasn't the best. I felt fear, I felt bad for my mum. I stayed with my Vavo for a bit. My dad moved to Leamington. I would stay with him through the summer. We're all pretty technologically stupid in my family, we pretty much save everything to our desktops for the world to find. My dad was going to counselling. I was playing a game on his computer and I stumbled upon some letters he wrote during his counseling. I only remember one, he mentioned that he wanted to commit suicide, but he wouldn't because he wanted to see me graduate, and he wanted to be at my wedding, and he wanted to be there for my babies. I felt so much love and sadness. When I was 17 I went on a missionary trip to Haiti, I love helping people. It was the best and the most eye opening experience. We worked so hard, but we had fun, we went to hospitals, I held a baby named Lukeson for 4 hours and when we went back the next day and I went for him, he was already dead. We saw how badly untreated prostate cancer can be, so I saw a man whose penis had fallen off, his scrotum was larger than a grapefruit and his stomach was cut down and his insides were on the outside. I never expected to see the things I saw. There was not in playing with the local kids. It was a rollercoaster of emotions. I felt angry when I came back, that people in our country are so ignorant to the world around them and how much we take things for granted. A group of us were pulled over by the police and threatened to pay them off or we would all go to jail. I went again the next year and my dad joined which I thought was special. I was 18 and as soon as we got to Labadie I walked over to a baby boy on the beach who was with him mum, learning to walk. His mum insisted I take this baby back to Canada and raise him as my own. Obviously I couldn't do that, but sometimes I wish I had. I was responsible that trip for taking photos of all the orphans so we could get them help. That trio definitely shaped the way I think now. College ...all that was pretty normal. Series of crappy boyfriends. Met Paul, thought right away that he was the one. When I think back now, I feel like I likey thought he was the one because he was so much better than the crap I had dated. We were also intimate very quickly. I was 23, so basically an idiot. I feel now that it was a decision based on lust and not true love.