I never really truly knew freedom and safety like having my own soverign space

Not to poop on your parade but I don’t think I’ll ever experience that in my life :(

I don’t know the exact date but it was a spring day a little over 20 years ago now. I was in my early 20s and spent a lot of my free time hiking, camping, etc. At that time I was really heavily into caving, especially vertical caving where we would use ropes, harnesses, etc to explore chasms.

This particular day I was on a several day camping trip to a really popular area in a national park. In the night a big rainstorm came and everything flooded. I had been there several days with my friend and we didn’t get the memo about the storm coming and were curious why nobody else was camping there when it was usually packed that time of year.

The next morning we awoke and this campground (on the banks of a river) was halfway underwater. We soon learned that our road out was also underwater so we were trapped at the campground. We had plenty of supplies as we had been there several days with intentions to explore caves, etc.

Now from this campground there was a really popular hike through a canyon with stone arches, cool caves, waterfalls, etc that was normally packed. Since we had the place to ourselves we decided to do the hike. I should mention that this was quite dangerous as the first mile or so of the trail was now under 2+ feet of moving flood waters. We had wetsuits (for caving) and ropes so we geared up and braved the flood waters.

Dear reader it felt like such an epic adventure. I knew the landscape well from being there many times but this time was magical. There were massive waterfalls everywhere rushing through the green spring foliage. We had to use our technical rope skills to safely cross rushing white water streams but everything was so beautiful and dangerous.

I haven’t done it justice of course but it was just this perfect day where everything came together. I was young and healthy, I had my best partner with me, we had all of the right gear, the road being underwater meant we had the whole area to ourselves, and everything had been magically transformed into a waterfall adventure park for us to play.

I’m still chasing that feeling of pure joy I had that day.

A specific day? I’m not sure. But I helped put my family back together after an absolutely brutal year that went straight into the pandemic. I brought my divorced parents back together. Not together-together, but they’re friends and we all hang out together. I care for my mom with my wife and sister’s help; got her much healthier and off alcohol. I care for my dad and got him independent. I helped mend their relationship. I mended my relationship with my brother who I didn’t speak to for years in lieu of this fallout and after battling it out with literally hundreds of thousands of words back and forth in letters.

I have one last puzzle to solve. In time, hopefully…

I’ve been so happy and grateful to spend time with my family largely as a whole again. To see my parents brighten up so much while playing with their grandkids is something I’ll always have as a core memory. Takes me back to my own childhood, too.

When asked if I’m better off now than I was 4 years ago, I can’t answer more instantly and definitely yes. I never want to go back to those terrible years, where covid was the least of my issues. Sure there is a lot of chaos in the world right now and this election is making me anxious, but I know my kids and family are much better off than what people are dealing with elsewhere in the world right now and I refuse to take that for granted.

So I guess I’m expressing a more slow burn of contentment.

I can’t really think of one worth mentioning

When I learned to smoke fish on the BBQ, I invited my family over, and my sister asked for a second serving.

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I found a penny about 10 years after they were discontinued in my county. Such an amazing day.

I can’t remember anymore. Haven’t felt great happiness for decades

I was getting ready to leave my girlfriend’s apartment. We had gone out for a walk and ended up having dinner. It wasn’t a formal date or anything, we had been together, officially, for nearly 6 months by that point.

We hugged and just kept hugging. Not petting or getting frisky, just holding each other and enjoying each other’s company for the final few moments of the evening.

It just came out, I said “I love you.”

She tensed and was silent for what felt forever. Long enough to start thinking I just either ended our relationship, or caused serious damage.

Just when I was about to disengage from her, she relaxed looked up and gave me a very very nice kiss and said; “I love you too.”

At the time I lived nearly 20 miles away from her and I do not remember the drive at all.

That was 21 years ago. We have two teenage boys now and happier now than we were back then.

In case someone wonders why I didn’t stay with her that night, it was a weeknight. We both had work the next day and she had an earlier morning than usual. The following weekend we spent the whole time together.

Day I got married.

Next would be the time the bartender offered me the half pint of beer for free while he went to change the keg.

June 25, 2009

No, not because Michael Jackson died, I had my first ever date and got a girlfriend.

There was a weekend in 2006 where I had absolutely nothing to do despite a full schedule for months on either side. I stayed in my apartment and played video games and just existed happily without being molested for three whole days.

I have had children and received promotions and all of that, but all of those experiences are laced with a bit of anxiety. That weekend though was just pure, light joy for three days and it is something I revisit mentally, constantly. Make sure to enjoy those little times too.

Landing in Bangkok Thailand for the first time in 1998.

I was tired, exhausted from a 14 hour flight from Chicago, where we had a 6 hour layover and we had spent 3 hours in Toronto before that. We flew economy on a seat no more comfortable than sitting at a padded kitchen chair at a family Thanksgiving supper that lasted for 13 hours and with 200 people cramped in barely enough room to move around. My legs cramped, my clothes reeked, I was so tired, I no longer cared if I was hungry … and at the end of the flight when they opened the door of the aircraft, I hoped for a cool breeze but was instead met with a warm moist smelly smog. I said to my wife that it must be a hot day which is why it was hot at midnight in the dark (I would later discover that it was actually a cool day!). We walked to the main terminal, dragged ourselves off to the passport line and shuffled our way to the exit to get our bags, then fought for an hour with taxi drivers who spoke terrible English and promised us passage to the dark side of the moon for $10. We had to figure out who had the best price and WOULD NOT carry us away to be murdered. I nearly fell asleep on the damp sticky taxi drive to the city to our ‘hostel’. He drove us off the freeway and onto dark roadways, then to a side street filled with what looked like street gang thugs and drug addicts … we thought we were done for and that we would be tortured for our bank accounts before our dead bodies got thrown in a city dumpster. It was 2am, in a deep dark noisy, ugly, smelly, hot, sticky city. The taxi driver motioned us to a narrow passage way with a little light. We said no, he said yes, yes. We were so tired, he could have just murdered us there. So we went and at the end of passage way it opened up to a wide brightly lit patio with shoes everywhere and a smiling young Thai woman who said ‘Welcome to Tavi Guesthouse!’.

We had arrived at the hostel we had rented through some weird new service we had just learned about called ‘email’ and we had made a bunch of calls using about $50 worth of long distance minutes to find and book this place.

We checked-in in a daze. The Thai lady could have charged us $1,000 a night and we wouldn’t have cared. The place was simple, basic and cheap … it was only $8 a night.

When we finally lay down, I took off my clothes and hugged my wife as we drifted off to sleep. I couldn’t believe we were in Thailand. My first international trip outside of Canada (I had been to the US but I felt like it didn’t count because the US is a lot like Canada). I had to let go of her and move to my side of the bed after a minute because we were both stinking hot. It was all a complete shock to our systems because we had left Sudbury in February at -40 degrees and within 24 hours arrived in the tropics at +40 degrees!

I watched the slow moving fan over our bed and tried to imagine it was cooling me off. I held her hand and we drifted off to sleep.

I felt like I was in a dream.

I was so happy. I was so tired. I was so amazed.

The day I was born. It was all downhill from there.

Other than my childhood summers…

It must have been that one time I traveled to Japan and stood at the Chureito Pagoda to see this view of Mount Fuji which I had as a desktop background and never in my life ever dreamed I’d see in person.

I dunno. Outside of my childhood summers I’ve never really had “the happiest day of my life”. It’s been only a series of disappointing events. And even moments that should have been filled with joy were filled with sadness and anxiety for various reasons. Mostly because of my relationships.