Mark and Tash - The relationship behind the Tao

About us

Oh how I hate this stuff. We met almost 10 years ago when as a suave young Moves and Changes boy (read this to be; person who unplugs the computer on your desk, not quite the kudos of a desktop support person 'but if you keep your nose clean, one day son, you might make it') I spotted a flame haired Australian chick on the helpdesk who refused to remember my name whenever we spoke. This was partly, she now admits, because every one in the department was welded to their chairs and would use the phone to speak to her form the next bank of desks, and me, well even then I preferred the personal touch and she thought I might be a stalker.
It was probably her illusiveness that intrigued me, she says it was my sartorial elegance that caught her eye, oddly, looking back on it now, I dressed more like a circus clown and she was just plain rude, but we were young.....

We first had a proper conversation, rather drunkenly in the Lord Raglan, the local work pub, one Friday night. It was an example of how things were to be;

Mark: Where are you from?
Tash: Australia
Mark: I never want to go there, every one goes there.
Tash: oh!

Using the vocabulary of Hollywood movies, we have always fitted into the category of 'strong independent types who really like each other but just bicker to show their respect' - this sucks as everyone else seems to have picked the better options of either the 'romantic lost boy who finds his soul partner', typically played by Tom Hanks, or 'passionate hot couple' , take your pick, John Travolta and Uma Thurman, Rocky and his trainer, Brad and ~~Jen~~ Angelina, Angelina and Billy Bob, Angelina and Johnny Lee, Lassie and her keeper, Han and Chewbacca, etc...

We have both stayed working in investment banking, now Tash works as a freelancer like me and though the market changes in the last couple of years have made it harder to find work and have made it less well paid, it is still preferable to most other jobs that I have had. She continues to surprise me, just when I have thought up a new insult for a row, 'you never do anything interesting' she will pop out the occasional 'corker'; she is extremely fond of her little green Vespa for instance and if you had seen her ride a bicycle you would have shared my surprise at that choice.

I have taken more of an interest in internet work again, I always knew those 5 years at Art College would come in handy some day, though I enjoy writing more than the design these days.

We were married two years ago and it marks another incidence when Cancer has provided a positive influence on our life, as, had she not received that diagnosis I doubt very much that we would have ever managed to reach a consensus on what to do with our relationship. We still struggle day to day with how to live our life with her diagnosis, neither of us are the type of people to ignore it, to be so petrified of it's return that we would cotton wool our life, but letting it have such a prominent position takes constant balancing and care. We feel that there are more benefits in dealing with her implied longevity head on, than in pretending to fit in with the normal cycle of things, marriage (ok), buying a house (ummm not yet), kids (oh god no!), divorce (it depends if she continues to dent my cars) . The exception to this is when we realise just how much we can drink, an accidental side effect we feel.

We have had only one major scrape with Cancer, but oh how it is dragging, are you sitting comfortably, then I will begin.

Her original Carcinoma from 2000, had popped back in 2004 to remind us, like a petulant child, that demands occasional attention. In rising to the occasion and as always, looking for a holiday, we upped it back to Australia for 6 weeks to get married.
It turns out that in doing this we inadvertently did some cutting edge field testing for a hormonal drug called Herceptin, she was given this as a stop gap until returning to the UK. The drug is intended to be used as alongside Chemo, but it worked so well on its own so we got an 18 month free-pass.

This free-pass evidently went through the washing machine mid way into last year and minus it's good luck we found ourselves back in treatment with a Taxol Chemo and Herceptin double bill for 8 cycles. Now as much as I love her, Tash is a bit shit at communicating and no matter what we attempted to say at the time, it is a heavy deal and family and friends, as I always say either need to be kept informed, so they can support you, or kept well out the way. I started writing the Tao in July of last year (2006), as the wife has family and friends all over the world and repeating the same piece of information over and over can be a little bit tedious, and spread over several time zones it can also be rather sleep depriving, so we thought that this would be the best medium to help the people we care about understand how we were coping. I am at pains to point out that decision had nothing to do with the fact that her father is considerably bigger than I am and I would not want to stand in the way of 'Big Ken' trying to get to his little girl, oh no, not at all.

21st March 2006

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