The Leysters: new york

Facebook, what a wonderful invention! Back in 2008 (well actually a while before that also) my marriage to my ex had been in trouble. He was my best friend but with hindsight I am not so sure we should have been in a relationship. I loved him like you love a best friend and I guess the whole male/female thing possibly got in the way....anyway like I say hindsight is a wonderful thing....the beauty of it was we got our wonderful princess Jennifer so I can't regret it....anyways, to cut a long story short I was not happy. I was in a terrible depressive state with it all. I was also that summer in a bit of a state as that October I would be approaching my 37th birthday...a birthday my own mother never saw as she died of unknown causes when she was 36 so for me to reach 37 or be the age she was when she died was terribly messy for my mind.

Mid September I came across Roger on facebook. I had known him very vaguely back 20 years before. He had worked with people I had been friends with. We knew each other by sight and had been party to group conversations back in the day but that was all. I saw him on there and recognised his face on a group page of where he used to work that he had set up when I had been searching for other friends. I joined the group and said Hi. Apparently he liked the look of me and remembered me and tried to find a way to enter into a conversation with me so he sent a group email about a reunion and I was the first to bite and reply to it and he then splintered off the joint email to be a personal one to reply.

Naughtily and possibly wrongly we were both married still but like me he was and never had been happy. Roger being a libran starsign is also like me when it comes to love...we both just wanted to be loved, both had always wanted to be in a relationship for companionship, I guess neither of us knew what real love was. He like me had some disastrous relationships in his past. He had married for pretty much the same reasons as I had, companionship. He like me was in a pretty depressive way. He was on the verge of leaving her having made the decision some months before whilst he had been on a holiday to New York although like me he had always dreamt of leaving and something else right from the start.

So, here we were, 2 very similar people feeling very similar things but please do not for one moment think that was the reason we got together because it was far more than that.

I still have the email thread from our conversations back then. I have never deleted them, in fact I once printed them out and put them in a folder as a valentine's gift for Roger and we often pour over them together wondering how we got together and how we both realised there was something more going on. Our emails were not full of love or lust as some may think. We spent a lot of time talking about other things, one of them New York. I had also commented on his holiday photos of New York as I had also been and we had this mutual love of the fabulous city. He has since said it was partly my passion in what I had written that made him realise I was so much more than my green eyes he had loved.

Anyway, somewhere, somehow along chatting about our children, our love of New York and other things we obviously both had a feeling sparking for each other. I had looked at his photos and saw a miserable unhappy man in the majority and also saw a man with a spark looking at pictures of him when he was out and socialising with his friends. I was also struck by the look in his eyes, the fact he was a big tall beefcake and one thought that always went through my mind was how much I would love to have a cuddle from him in his big strong arms.

DISCLAIMER: sorry, sick bags/buckets do not come with this blog.

He had been doing likewise and looking at my photos and feeling similar things. He had even printed a picture out of me on A4 and had it close at hand on his desk.

We were both feeling happier, other people noticed. This email thing went on for 2 weeks and towards the end of it we had also started texting as well. I remember being sat at work one day and reading a text that took my breath away it was so beautiful and I gasped out loud and everyone asked what it was...when I explained they all thought he sounded wonderful and wanted a 'Roger'.

We had toyed with the idea of meeting up but it was more a 'we should meet for a cuppa' kind of thing than anything else. Then one Friday night I just felt so strongly that I needed to meet him as I knew he would be travelling back to Devon for 4 days the next day (as he commuted between the airport and devon for work and home staying with a friend whilst up this way) and I just knew I had to meet him. I can't put my finger on what it was I just had to see him and text him saying so. We arranged to meet the next afternoon when he finished work.

It was a bright sunny day in late September. We arranged to meet in a local large park. I arrived and he text me to tell me where he was parked and I started to walk over to meet him. He got out of his car and I just remember thinking yep, that's the Roger I remember and wow....as he got out of his car he kind of uncurled himself and stood up tall. We had a hug like how you would great a friend but to be honest I just wanted to stay in his arms. We started to walk over to where there was a pond and some benches. I felt kind of nervous like I knew the rest of my life depended on this.

I have to say despite a very outgoing persona I am inside a very shy nervous person. I hide it very well but I have no self confidence and I worry constantly. I would never ever ever make the first physical move as I believe no one would want to or feel that way towards me so what I did next still confuses me to this day.

I do not know what happened but walking across that car park I suddenly said 'stop' and from nowhere I just gave him a kiss. Not a great snog, just a firm peck to the lips and as I pulled away said 'that's better' he smiled and was happy and we held hands and carried walking towards the bench. We both say we knew for sure then we were in love...soppy old buggers eh.

Then for the next 2 hours or so we just sat on that bench watching the world go by, chatting and laughing, holding hands and just sitting there pretty much as we still do on that bench to this day. Tactile I think is how you would describe it. We were facing each other yet sat very close, his arm was round the back of the bench and would stroke my shoulder, I would laugh and put my hand on his etc you know how it goes...we were very comfy and relaxed with each other. Those 2 hours flew by and neither of us wanted it to stop but he needed to head home and so did I.

We did sit in his car for a little while and yes we had a lovely kiss...the way he kissed me made me feel like a princess and the most beautiful woman ever and he has since said that is exactly what he wanted to portray to me.

DISCLAIMER: you still have to provide your own sickbags.

When we left each other we both knew it was something so special we both knew we wanted to be together. I guess when it is right it is right you just can't fight it...so we didn't.

Yes it may have been wrong, yes we hurt some people but when you have spent so long unhappy what do you do? Do you stay there and be miserable for the rest of your life or do you take that chance on happiness?

When your husband or wife knows the marriage was never right or never correct and admits it, admits they have known for years it was over yet never did anything to remedy it or put any effort in whatsoever should you stay and be miserable?

Within a week Roger had left his wife, and about 2 weeks later I ended my marriage. I would have done it that day I met Roger I was so sure and figured then well if this is not what love is all about then I do not want to be unhappy any longer even if Roger did not want me but I had a family holiday that the children were very excited about so did not want to ruin that for their sake but I ended my marriage as soon as we got back.

I know a lot of friends and family were very confused by the speed of it all but we just knew...suddenly we could breath again, suddenly we were feeling real happiness and love and it was lovely.

Things were really tough for Roger and in someways still are...far too much to go into here but all things that proved we both did the correct thing.

We knew right away we wanted a baby, some may say that is really silly but then when have I ever been known to be sensible.

We started trying about a month after meeting for a baby...Jules took quite a few months to come along.

Roger asked me to marry him, on our bench where we first sat on that first date on our 3 month anniversary of meeting. We were both still married obviously and whilst some may feel being 'engaged' was therefore wrong but he wanted to show his commitment to me and vice versa. It took us far longer to get married than we wanted but what with divorces and other things including Jules, well we finally got there in the end and what a lovely day that was. Finally we were Mr and Mrs Leyster...few months on we still look at each other and say bloody hell we got married and laugh and giggle about it like two teenagers....but then that is us...two teenagers, we should have been together 20 years before and always been together but for whatever reason we didn't and the time was not right but it sure is now!

...and I thank my mum for sending me the best most amazing present for my 37th birthday, for the birthday she never had, for the life she never lived she gave me the ability to live my life in happiness, finally xx

This picture always makes me smile. Roger had organised for the day after he asked me to marry him a lovely day to celebrate. To show his love he took me ice skating on the frozen lake of doom as he called it...what this picture does not maybe show is how bloody scared he was and how bambi like he was on the ice...we then went across the road at Hampton Court and had a lovely meal in Blubeckers to celebrate as well.

I seem to recall the reaction was one of shock that he had woken up. It was one of lots of excitement from Daddy and myself for sure. I think we were both very excited that he seemed to be acting like a normal newborn...all blinky eyed and hello world.

I was so very worried if he went back to sleep he may never wake again. He was awake for about 20 minutes before he gradually drifted off again. He woke later on when I went up there and they told me he had woken a little bit and had cried like a little kitten mewing when they had moved him around. I remember hearing his first cry it was so very sweet...nothing like other newborns cries...it did get stronger over the next few days and soon became full force baby cry lol.

He had been through so much in the previous few days. He had been through blood transfusions and the full intensive care package. He had IV lines in his feet and his arms, he had blood taken and things done with his cord stump. It was never clamped with one of those plastic pegs. It had scissor clamps on it at first and then they sewed it up with what looked like darning thread. In fact he was about 4 weeks before his little cord stump fell off. I did not think it would ever come off. He has a little sticky out belly button now bless him.

I do not even know the emotions I had gone through those days of sitting by his incubator. I know I would quite often go up there in the middle of the night and sit with him and talk to him and beg him to come through all of this (before he woke and was still being cooled). I remember talking to him all about New York as daddy wanted to go there for his 40th birthday that coming October. I told him all about the big tall buildings he would see, how we would get there by flying high in the clouds on a big silver plane (American Airlines) and that we would go for a walk in Central Park and he could see all the trees. That we would go on a boat ride around Manhattan and go on the big yellow boat to Staten Island and go past Liberty. I also sung to him. I sung the Carpenter's 'Close to you'. I had sung it in hospital and it pacified my 3rd child Jordan when he had to have an operation and was treated for pyloric stenosis. I sung it to Jules too but normally ended up breaking down in tears. I made a deal that if he carried on doing well I would not sing him Donny Osmond songs lol.

Hormones...ahh hormones...what a terrible thing when your baby is so ill. I was all over the place. The minute they had heard that Jules had come off the ventilator I was whisked and removed from the Daffodil room. They gave me a single room on the post natal ward. It was hard as it was of course full of happy mum's with babies. I don't know if it was because I was from another hospital but the care was seriously lacking with hindsight. Don't get me wrong, on NICU they had lovely nurses (except some of the crazy foreign night ones). The midwives were lovely but they had no time, I had no advice on anything to do with the c section, no physio advice and I know they had someone coming round as I kind of gatecrashed one about a week later but she told me she was for first day advice so it was worthless to me by then. I didn't know they did not bring breakfast round either...no one had told me you had to hobble to the other end to get it yourself and the rest of the food was the absolute worse I have ever had the misfortune to experience in any hospital. It really was slop, who would serve up lasagne with mash potato? It all tasted the same. Even a ham and tomato sandwich tasted like toxic plastic. I was more or less a ward lodger and I just came and went and spent most of my time in NICU....they lacked comfy chairs and I think that not being able to relax really did not help my recovery from the C section. I was in constant pain.

On the Monday when he was 5 days old the most amazing thing happened...I got to cuddle Jules. I can not even begin to tell you how it felt apart from amazing!! The feeling of his weight on my chest was amazing, the smell of him was amazing, having him nuzzle into me was amazing. I cried and broke down...what else could I do? I felt like I had waited a lifetime for that cuddle...well I guess I had, Julian's lifetime! One of the nurses was taking photos and she just click clicked away, we have some lovely pictures of our first time together as a family.