Our Love Story
Chris and I are celebrating 14 years together and I felt called to share our love story. Taking a look back at how it unfolded makes me believe even more in divine timing.
14 years ago today, it was a Saturday. I was living in Ottawa of my downtown apartment in the market. It was a loft bedroom and I loved being a few blocks from everything. My best friend and I went to food basics to do a big grocery shop because she had a car. I had jeans and a sweater on as we walked through the aisles. I got a text message from my co-worker who had been trying to get me to meet her roommate. She said she was out for lunch a few blocks from my apartment and I needed to get there now and that she was making sure this guy would be there too.
I remember looking at my best friend Linds and said “I am just going like this, I am not dressing up. He’s got to like me for me”
This was 2010. I had just gone through a HUGE transformation year the year before. I had finally admitted my unhealthy relationship with alcohol. I would have a bottle of wine in the house and need to finish it. I would try to have one glass but keep thinking about the second. Looking back I was numbing with alcohol from pain, trauma and my intuitive gifts. But I hit rock bottom and decided to quit alcohol and choose the life I wanted to live. If I wanted to have a husband and three kids (I have always wanted three) then I knew I needed to start changing my habits now. I was determined. I needed to become the person I wanted in the future now. I had to call it in. I quit drinking alcohol in June of 2009 and haven’t looked back. Right after that I decided to walk the Camino de Santiago. Myself and friends Linds and Jess walked 333km across Spain in 10 days. We stayed at hostels, we hiked up mountains and had amazing memories.
Phones weren’t like they are now and I just kept mine off and in my backpack in case of an emergency but didn’t look at it at all. I was able to walk and think and heal. While walking I had a lot of release of pain and regret. I worked through a lot on the Camino and I am forever grateful for that time I took to truly heal. I remember walking and imagining what I wanted my life to look like. I remember saying I wanted to become a yoga teacher and when I got back my favourite teacher announced she was about to start doing a yoga certification course. It was wild how the Universe was lining everything up for me.
That whole year before I met Chris was about healing. It was about deep healing and being present for myself. I didn’t date anyone. I remember going on a date and even though the guy checked off all of the boxes and was really into me, I wasn’t into him. I didn’t have that feeling I was looking for and so I told him that I wasn’t interested. I truly believe when we don’t settle and we tell the Universe no, we are making room for what we do want.
When I went on the Camino I carried worry rocks in my bag. There is a spot where you can place your rocks in this huge mountain of rocks and you put your worries in the rocks and release them. The energy at this mountain is INSANE. I actually had to step away for a minute to gather myself. I carried four rocks for clients of Chris’s roommate (who I worked with and introduced us), he said he saw the rocks on the table waiting for his roommate to give them to me for months without knowing that one day I would be his wife.
The Camino I call my re-birth. I went through that trip feeling so much anger while walking I would take it out on my hiking stick each step and then there would be a beautiful release of tears letting all of the trauma and grief go as I worked through it in my mind. I spent my 27th birthday up on the highest part of the mountain.
When I got back I remember as I watched my life unfolding in all of the ways I had said I wanted while walking the Camino. I remember standing in the shower at my apartment and saying to God, I am ready for my husband. Within two months from that statement, Chris and I met.
What is wild is that a psychic when I was 15 had predicted it all. Myself and three friends had gone to a trailer where a psychic who chain smoked and taped your reading on an audio cassette tape did my reading. She said that I already knew my husband. I ran through the guys I knew at the time and wanted to barf. She said no, you haven’t officially met him yet but you walk by each other and are always near each other. She said that this would continue happening until we were almost 30 and then we would meet. She said if I lived to be 30 because she saw me struggling with my mental health in my 20’s, which was very true. She said we would have three kids and be very happy. She said she didn’t know how I met him finally because she saw him travelling all over the world. This part didn’t make sense until Chris joined the Navy and goes on deployments. She also said I would not be a famous actress like I had dreamed (I honestly lay on my kitchen floor bawling after the reading about this) and I would do something with helping people, something with psychology. Once Chris and I met, we noticed the timelines of us both living in Toronto at the same time and then I moved back to Ottawa and within a month of me moving, he moved back to Ottawa. We really are like magnets to each other.
On Saturday January 16, 2010, I walked into pub 101 in Ottawa in the afternoon, with a green zip up hoodie and some jeans and went for lunch with my co-worker and her boyfriend. Their roommate (Chris) was running late. I was there with the two of them for about 40 mins before Chris got there. I was super relaxed and thought how nice it was to hang out even if he didn’t come. I had absolutely no expectations, I wasn’t attached to the outcome.
He walked in and I still remember he wore a black coat with a houndstooth scarf. He sat down beside me and I felt my whole body relax. Just being in his energy felt like home. He began to tell all of us why he was late. He had been car shopping with his sister and brother in law and while he was helping them look for a car his jeans zipper busted open. Our mutual friend had called seeing where he was and he said I can’t come because my zipper of my pants is busted. She said to him, this is happening, you are meeting her today, get some new pants and get down here. And there he was. The way he told stories so animated and funny had me captivated. We talked a lot that night. We ended up going to a different place and we got this table right in the front of the pub that was separate from that restaurant and the four of us got to hang out. Chris and I were so engrossed in our conversation we barely noticed our friends at the other side of the table. It was like I had known him my whole life. Later I would find out that in fact I DID know him since I was at least 12. We were in the play the Wizard of Oz together and I was the Wicked Witch and he was a munchkin. Once his sister figured this out, I went to my parents house and sure enough there were pictures of him and I on stage together which is so cool to show our kids.
Chris is in the beige coat with orange under. My brother is in the white shirt peeking in front of him and I am the Wicked Witch.
I remember being on stage and burning my hand with the fire paper and lighter they had attached to my broom. The fire paper I had waiting in my hand caught on fire when lighting the other one. I did the rest of my scene and melted and then when backstage asked where a sink was so I could run my hand under cold water. A boy said the sink is over there!… it was Chris.
We love telling our three beautiful children our love story. We get to live steps from the Ocean and have this beautiful life where I also got my degree in Psychology and help people.
That night that we met stands out so clearly to me even as the years go by. It was so special and so magical because I let go of expectations, showed up as my authentic self and let the universe take over. I remember our friends said that they wanted to go home, it was 10:00pm and they had been out all day. I remember saying bye to Chris as he got in a cab, hoping that I would see him again soon.
My relationship over the past 14 years is not perfect because there is no such thing as perfection. We work hard on our relationship and always put it as a top priority. I believe our relationship is the foundation for our home. We are a team and always stand as a united front to our kids. My biggest advice for anyone looking for a healthy relationship is to get clear on what you actually want and then take time to heal and work through your own stuff. We all carry so much baggage that if we can work through it and know how to love ourselves and do that deep work, we will walk into the relationship healthy and ready.
If you need help with this, the doors to my Badass Bitch 6 month coaching program have officially opened. Let’s work 1-1 together and really move that needle of transformation! Let me work with you and hold you accountable and be that support, guiding you and digging deep with you. I have been there too. Let’s create the life you have dreamed of.
