New Beginings

Today is my wedding anniversary. My first wedding anniversary. Wow we have made it through a whirlwind of a year.

I met Mark on the Internet on a dating site. Three months later I was pregnant. Six months later we got married and three months after that our son Luke was born. Before Luke was born I relocated in January 2009 with my then 6 year old daughter (Lily) from Cape Town to Jhb to be with Mark. It was a difficult and emotional time for all of us. I was leaving my beloved CT which ripped me apart. I have amazing girlfriends who are like sisters to me living in Cape Town and my parents and my sister and niece are also there. Leaving them all was very painful. On Marks side, he had been a bachelor for 45 years and was now taking in a new wife and step daughter. He had been out of work for a while and was in a new job trying to get his feet on the ground and was also about to become a father for the first time. He was going through big stuff too. But more than that, I was up rooting my little girl, taking her out her school and away from her friends, and mostly, I was taking her away from her adored daddy. I felt terrible, the guilt knawing at me with each box I packed. She had cried many times, asking me why I was doing this to her and questioned me relentlessly as to why I was marrying Mark and not her daddy. She kept asking me when she was she going to see her daddy and now that he was all alone what was he going to do? To top it off our cat that was supposed to come with us disappeared at the last minute. I had the cat box and tranquiliser ready just before leaving for the airport, but we couldn't find him anywhere. There I was heavily pregnant running around the streets of Sea Point desperately looking for him. Eventually my sister said she would come back and find him and urged me to get going to get to the airport in time for our flight. As it turns out a neighbour took him in where he is very happy now and Mark has a Staffie which I have since learned are known for eating cats! As we boarded the plane and flew away from our beautiful city my heart sank.

Mark met us at OR Tambo Airport and we drove 'home'. I was an emotional wreck sitting next to my new husband who I was still getting to know (but who I new from the moment I met him, would make a good husband). A few days later my furniture arrived from CT and I began the painful task of unpacking and amalgamating my things with Marks. This is something one should be so happy about when one gets married but all I wanted to do was take my own stuff and go back to Cape Town back to my life with Lily as a single mom and back to our gorgeous Victorian flat.

A week later Lily started at her new school which had nothing on her lovely little school she had been at in Camps Bay. I hated the 'government' type school and the fact that it was so very different to our exclusive little world at CB Prep. To make matters worse, Lily clung to me in the mornings and cried dreadfully for me not leave her each and every morning for the first term . Together with my guilt and being heavily pregnant my heart broke for her every day. In the mean time I started to get to know her class teacher, Leigh Schoeman, who I began to realise was an exceptional teacher. As time past she soon noticed that Lily was struggling and that this was more than just the trauma of her current circumstances. With the help of a wonderful educational psychologist we discovered that Lily has ADHD and have been able to tackle this and make my child's life so much easier at school. She is now a happy little bunny who has made some lovely friends and loves her school. I too have made a good friend out of one her friend's. Nici's mom - Paula has been wonderful and arrived to fetch Nici from her first play date with lily, with flowers to welcome me here!

On the 7th March 2009 we welcomed our beautiful little boy into the world. Luke Patrick Meyer. My amazing mother came up from CT for his birth and to help out especially with Lily in the following three weeks. He is such a joy to our lives and although Lily was very jealous at first she is now a doting and very good big sister.

We slowly started to settle down. However, after Luke was born I found myself going into a dark space and hating everything about Jhb. One day a good friend of mine (Carla) told me off and said I should just accept being here and that CT wasn't going anywhere and that I could always return there one day. She kind of shook me out of my self pity and that day I decided to focus on what I DO have in my life as opposed to what I don't have. I am lucky that I have her living around the corner from me as well as my friends Derryn, Dee and Marion. They have all helped me to feel more at home. I also have my brother Andrew and sister-in-law Tina and my two nieces Amy and Olivia. Tina has been like a rock for me so I have this to be thankful for too. Nowadays I focus on my two gorgeous children, and my wonderful husband. I love the garden we have where we spend wonderful family time. These are things that lots of people don't have even if they are in the most beautiful places in the world. How blessed I feel!

For now I take each day as it comes and live with love and appreciation for all my blessings. I will never give up on us returning to Cape Town in the future, but have accepted being in Jhb as not such a bad option for the time being.