2012-2014

2012

I was introduced to my now husband around Easter 2012 by a mutual friend on Facebook (one that neither one of us has actually met in person yet). I was in Toronto, and he was here in Australia.

We chatted every now and then via messenger when one day out of the blue, he asked me for my number. Said he wanted to say a quick hello so we could hear each other's voices. Without hesitation, I gave it to him.

He called me.

What was supposed to be a quick hello, turned into 5.5 hours of talking about anything, everything, and nothing mixed with a whole lot of laughter.

What he didn't know when he called me was that I was ready to end my life. I had failed attempts before, but this time, I was going to do it right. I had a full script of heavy pain killers and a liter of whiskey to wash it down with.

What I didn't know at that time either was that he was feeling the same way.

That phone called changed things for both of us. After that, we chatted every day via messenger, text and skype.

Fast forward now to 2013.

We've been talking for a year, getting to know each other and becoming the best of friends. He's now decided that he wants to come visit me so he's booked himself a trip to come see me later in the year.

He came to Toronto to visit me in October. We crammed a lot into the 3 weeks that he was there including time with his family (he has cousins that live not far from where I was living).

My birthday was the day before he was leaving. One of the gifts he got me was a ticket to come to Australia over Christmas to visit him.

Australia had always been at the top of my bucket list of places to visit.

I got here around mid December and he along with one of my cousins, helped me surprise my uncle with a visit a couple of days after I arrived.

He couldn't get much time off work while I was here so we crammed as much as we could into our evenings and weekends. A month went by way too fast.

It's now 2014.

Leaving to head back to Toronto was difficult...I wanted to stay, and he wanted me to stay.

I got back to Toronto and we talked about me coming back to visit again for Easter but staying longer this time. I booked my trip to stay for 6 weeks and came back for Easter. We picked up right where we left off, like I had never left.

I was due to leave on Mother's Day. 2 days before I was due to leave, his parents decided they wanted to treat us to dinner and drinks. We spent the afternoon and evening with his parents eating and drinking. We did the smart thing and left the car at home and took the train from Lawson to Blackheath.

That night, a friend popped in (who had also been drinking all afternoon) and they decided to act like a couple of 5 year olds and played a game of silly buggers. Well, Laurance lost that game. He landed on his leg and what we initially thought was a pulled muscle turned out to be a spiral fracture in his tibia. I rebooked my flight home to stay for another 2 weeks to make sure he had a freezer full of ready meals and I had made arrangements with our neighbour who was a nurse to pop in and check on him from time to time.

Upon going to the fracture clinic, we found out he's going to be out of action for at least 4 weeks...no pressure on his leg at all...that means no work, no walking, no driving.

I rebooked my flight again and this time for another 6 weeks which would have had me here to the end of June.

I told him that a normal person would not have just asked me to stay longer instead of going to such extremes to get me to stay.

He was on the mend and back to work by the time I was due to leave again. We got to the airport and checked in only to be told before I got to security that my flight was cancelled because a bird flew into the engine upon landing. The next flight they can get me on via Vancouver is in a couple of days...back to Lawson we go.

I got back to Toronto on July 2nd and finally filed for my divorce from asshole on July 3rd. The next day, Laurance and I started talking about getting married. Neither one of us had wanted to get married again...we'd been there, done that.

On September 6th, 2014, we decided to quit smoking. Me in Toronto, and him in Lawson.

He was miserable with the job he had and had tinkered with the idea of opening his own mower and small engine repair business. He'd been repairing mowers and chain saws on the side from time to time but wanted to do it as a proper business now.

We got him set up with an ABN, got everything he could possibly need to set up a proper work shop in the garage. We bought a Ute and turned it into a mobile service. We worked on everything from lawn mowers and chain saws to ride on mowers. He was happy working and doing something he enjoyed.

We had originally planned on getting married in Vegas by an Elvis impersonator...that idea was squashed when the company he was working for refused to give him time off so we could get married. That's when we decided I would come back to Australia again and we got married at Wentworth Falls Lake.

We got married on 31 December 2014. We had a very small wedding. Us, my cousin Mery who was my maid of honour, his old flat mate Rob who was his best man, our Celebrant Terry and his wife (who took some of our photos for us).

What made the lake perfect for us is the Pirate Ship Playground. We had our hats, muskets, hooks and swords and did our photos on the pirate ship playground. After the lake, the 4 of us went to Echo's for lunch and had a view overlooking the Jamieson Valley.

I was still dealing with the law suit for the car accident so I couldn't stay. Leaving after every trip got harder and harder.

Now we're into 2015.