My Mister Fix It

Have I ever stated that Mark is a Mister Fix It? He loves to fix things that are broken and not working properly. I don't just mean things that he can tinker with and fix up I mean people too. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned how he helped fix ME! I was broken for a very long time.

Mark and I met online in an ICQ Chat room back in 2000. My girlfriend Denise introduced me to icq so that we could chat online. Although I used to think it was funny as we only lived a few blocks away from each other at the time but I installed it on my computer anyway. Then one day I accidentally found the chat rooms. I was hooked. So hooked that everything else took second place including my family.

Now that I think back it really was a sad time. My (now ex) hubby was not as attentive as he could've been. He was more interested in scoring dope than scoring points with his family. In fact he was dispicable with my Brodie, our oldest. Telling him that he wasn't HIS kid but mine and that Angus, our baby, was HIS. Can you imagine what went through Brodie's mind? This poor kid with Aspergers (mind you we didn't know at the time) being told that his own father didn't even think of him as HIS child. I can tell you that he most certainly WAS.
My Mum was extremely sick with emphysema, and had been for years, although she was adamant it was asthma! and she told everyone that it was. Now I am not making excuses for being like I was this is just a little background info.

By June of 2000 I was fed up with the boys father. When the GST began in July of that year I packed a suitcase for him and left it on the front door verandah. I used to joke about it actually. I said that when the GST came it that having a hubby was going to make things 10% more expensive. To be honest I was glad to have sent him on his way. My boys and I deserved better than him. It was worth losing a suitcase. What was even funnier was the fact that when I told him to go he went straight to my parents house a few doors up and said that I had kicked him out. What was my parents meant to do .. house him and feed him? They took him to my brothers home in the end.

It was around this time that I met Zaney and his g/f at the time online. Zaney being Mark's nickname when we met. We had a few casual chats in icq and that was pretty much it for a while. Mark was online during the week but was off living a life on weekends, when I seemed to miss him the most as I was home all the time.

Mum passed away in November 2000. It was an awfully hard time. I was working full time raising the boys as best as I could on my own with Mum & Dad helping out with child care. They were the boys primary carers while I was working with Victor helping out as much as he could. I was suffering from the working mothers guilt and it played heavily on me. Mum was my rock and now she was gone.

The following year was a mixture of working full time as a teacher, being there for my boys, gaining full custody of them (very much worth the $2000 I paid the lawyer) and being addicted to being on icq. I had friends in my computer. I needed them. They consoled me, encouraged me and helped me. They were there in ways that my ex-hubby never was. They helped me through my marriage break up, the death of my Mum, my now dread and hatred of working. In fact it was my friends online that helped me realise that I was depressed and encouraged me to go see my doctor. I am eternally grateful to them for that. Ena, Zaney, Lynxy, Rebbie and all the others that I cannot seem to remember right now.

In 2001 things had been tough. Brodie had been such a handful. Running away from home, being extremely defiant and still at that stage undiagnosed with Aspergers and ADHD. The boys father who had been helping a great deal with looking after the boys after school up and vanished two days after Christmas.

In January 2002 took my boys on a holiday to Victoria to meet Zaney & his g/f, Nazz. We loved it there. We were in a caravan park. It was in the middle of dairy country. There was no where for Brodie to run away too. It was peaceful. I even managed to survive the school holidays.
Before we went home to Adelaide I found out from my Dad that my brother, the extremely scary & abusive one, was now living at his home just a few doors down from me. I was too terrified to go home. So much so that I asked Mark and his g/f to drive back with me. That I would pay for their fuel if they would come with me. I was so relieved when they agreed.

The came back to Adelaide with me. While they were staying with me we talked about my moving to Victoria to live. It was a great idea. They were going to take Brodie back with them and get him settled to start school and I would come over with Angus at the end of the first school term. I had accepted a teaching position back at the school I was working at the previous few years. At least this way I could save some money before moving interstate.

The day Zaney and Nazz left to go back to Victoria with Brodie I went back to work. Later that night when I got home I found out that my brother, the nasty one, had committed suicide. He was accused of molesting his step-daughter. His friends had deserted him and he felt that he had no other options left. So he gassed himself in his car where he worked in Virginia. I had no idea he had felt that bad but to be honest after all he did to me as a child and as a young adult the less I saw of him the better. He was so horrible to me that I cannot even think about it without wanting to cry.

I didn't realise that I would feel the loss of his death as badly as I did. With Brodie gone, Dad going away on holiday over my birthday no less, me going back to work & no one about to really help me any more I felt lost. I ended up in hospital myself, on the psych ward no less. Mark came and rescued me. He told me what I needed to do to get out of the hospital and back into the 'real' world.

My Mister Fix It came to my rescue. He helped me pack up my house and move interstate. Although it would be several years before Mark and I got together as a couple. He was always there to help me when I needed him & still is.