10 years…we are still here…

January 2013. I still feel it like it was yesterday…It was the month we decided that the girls and I should come to Romania for a couple of months at least or for the better.

Our youngest, Anastasia was only 5 months old when we all flew over to Romania for her Christening and maybe for more. I was still on maternity leave so…if I thought If I/we really wanted to we could’ve all come back to London.

We were back to Romania for at least the summer in my books. However, just before my husband flew back to London and back to work…I fell badly and injured my left foot. My ligaments had to take a break for at least 12 weeks…It was May, so from then until the end of August I had to give my leg a break. Basically, I wasn’t allowed to step on it for all that time.

Thankfully, I was at home and my parents helped a lot. If it was to happen in London with a 5 month and a 4 year old, would’ve been a nightmare… It was still a nightmare, but I had support nevertheless.

Saying goodbye to my kids daddy though…was heartbreaking for my then 4 year old. Her daddy was her world and he was leaving her in an almost unknown world…Although she understood romanian, she didn’t speak a word of it. She was giving a tantrum and crying almost every night.

Little by little, though she started to get used to my parents, to my sister, to the woman that was helping me with her baby sister while my mum was at work. I needed help for day to day basis because I had to move using crutches so I couldn’t carry around my baby daughter. I was still breastfeeding her…

In June I received an email from my bosses that was informing me that I was made redundant…so there was no job to go back to London to anymore. 1927 Limited was my second home whilst in London…I love and miss the people that I worked with there…The company was closed soon after too.

By July we moved into the half renovated part of the house that my parents gave us and for the girls was really nice. They had their intimacy with their mum. Daddy was coming home every 6 weeks or so and we spoke to him on Skype almost every day, and that made evenings better for Kara.

By the end of August I was allowed to step on my foot again(although I was still using one crutch) so we were able to go out in the town together. It was quite funny – one crutch in one hand, pushing the stroller with the other while managing a 4 and a half year old child too.

By then my husband sent almost all our stuff to Romania and the rest he sold. He also moved into one shared house so there was no place for the three of us to go back to. I don’t remember the exact month but I know that soon enough he moved from London to Bracknell too.

As we stayed, we also gave up Kara’s school place in London. School here in Romania starts at age 6 so I put her in nursery so she can learn romanian faster.

Looking back, I know that all that happened that summer happened because we had to move here. Back home, for me… It was very challenging. I was back with my parents in the same house, in the same garden after 14 years. To move from London to a small town in Romania is a change.

Friends helped a lot though. I met and became friends again with a girl I was friends with in the nursery. She also had a daughter and we spent a lot of time together. Her husband was away working as well. There’s a lot of families like this in Romania…

Fast forward almost 10 years…when I close my eyes I still feel like a 32 year old mother with her two under 5 daughters walking through the park in London…seeing the future that a city like London can give her family and her daughters.

In my dreams…I am still there sometimes, although home was good for us.

I am now a 42 year old woman with her husband by her side(it took him 6 years to join us but he did it in the end) and her two 10 years older daughters. Now, Anastasia is a feisty girl 10 years old – she always knows what she wants and she fights for it until she gets it – and Kara is 14, a young lady passionate about make-up and fashion – she’s still that delicate flower for the outsiders but a true fighter.

I don’t know why time is so cruel. I don’t know why it feels like the minutes, the days, the weeks, the years are simply flying away…I truly feel like moments are slipping through my fingers and I don’t even have time to catch my breath before the next change, the next challenge comes along.

We are settled here now…we have a small business opened through european funds that somehow managed to survive through Covid and is now still surviving through the war that is happening just next door to our country. We hope it will still survive through whatever it will come into the world – recession or more wars…because although the european funds helped us open the business, we also invested money, time and love in it.

I find myself feeling very unsettled and worried about the future though…I just hope we will all be well and healthy to be there and support our girls to achieve what they want to do in their future.

How do you feel about the future? About these unsettling times?