Happy 19th birthday Rebeka Scarlett

So it's the eve before your birthday and the solstice.  In keeping with tradition I am writing your annual birthday letter.  One day I will go back and find all the old ones and print for you.  I wish I could find your baby book with my preggie letter but it's in storage somewhere in this house.  Everything I do is with Holland in mind and our potential move. 

They say what a difference a year makes.  Last year on this very day we had your 18th party and wow it was HECTIC but so much fun.   After such a long lockdown everyone was ready to let their hair down and party like rock stars.  Daniel, Brandon and Jaques aka Miss 'Rona made it extra fun even if they did drink most of the booze.  And you looked so beautiful too.   I never imagined a year later COVID would still be around but more than that, you would be living on the other side of the globe.  So we have the longest night of the year and you have the longest day. 

It's weird for me not to follow our tradition of waking everyone up with tea and bringing your gifts as you all sit bleary eyed while I am perky and excited.  Praying for you and then watching you open your prezzies and LOVING them as I am such a winner gift giver.   Breakfast with your dad and then off to school.  Cupcakes for the class when you were smaller.  Now you are there and I am here but in 41 sleeps time I will be there for our vacay!   How fortunate are we?!

I know your love language is someone taking the time to make you feel special and appreciated so I hope the gift Dad & I put together makes you feel just that.  I also hope you like the practical gift.  I know you will!

A year ago you were navigating your way through messy life trying to get through matric during COVID, learning to drive a car, figuring out who you were and how to deal with shit and all the curve balls that 2020 threw our way.  And you did Scarlett!   You finally learned to drive even if I aged a few years.   You had your dance looking SO exquisite and it was actually better with no partners. Once again apologies for overdoing it at pre's.  I still say it was the parma ham in the hot sun that did it after a 10 year pork abstinence and not too many G&Ts.  Oh well, I had fun and so did you girls!

Your finals were tough and you obviously studied way too hard Rebeka-Style but you are definitely the only Novitzkas or Loebenberg to matriculate with 6 As and a 79% for Afrikaans.  (That one is a mystery considering how kak your Afrikaans is!)  I am glad you got to go away for a little bit with your girls even if it meant we all got frikkin' 'rona!! 

I am still in awe of you and how you jumped on a plane last minute and flew off to Holland to live with strangers and take care of such young kiddies.  I am grateful Sarah has been so sweet to you and it's comforting to know she is around.  You going to miss those little people even if they gave you a literal run for your money.

Dad & I are also so happy you have Veronia and Derrick to act as surro 'rents to you.  I am beyond excited for you to start your degree at Maastricht. What a life changing experience to study at a foreign university.  And yes how I wish it was me and I was 19 and studying in Holland.  You are living my dream life!

For a social loud extrovert going off to Holland is easy.  For an introvert very young Saffa like you it's huge and you have figured it all out.  This is your butterfly year Rebeka.  This is your time to literally shine and sparkle.  You have done the hard grind, you have been the caterpillar and you have spent all this time in your cocoon and now it's 2021 and your birthday and I know you are going to fly.  I just do.  And yes you will have hard days and days of doubt and lonely days but your resilience is so much more and you have grown up so much in the past 6 months. 

I love your loud laugh, I love your keen bright mind.  I love your nerdy goofiness.  I love all the millions of memories we have made over the last 19 years.  I love your dog, I love your odd friends, especially Emma & Tash.  I know I meddle and sometimes I am a lawnmower parent and I would like to tell you I will stop but we both know that's a lie.  I will trust you to know what you need and what you don't need though.  But I will still be that meddling FB mom because there is nothing more beautiful to me than seeing you happy.  I hope you have a magical birthday and I wish I was there with you but at least I will be there for your 21st when we are living there.  I have realised I can't not live in the same country as you.  Just no way!
Happy Happy Birthday Rebeka Scarlett!

From your Ma x

Work: does it make me happy?

So on the 15th of July last year I started working as the social worker at the family shelter.   Although I have many years of working at various NGOs and starting and running one myself, this was my first job as a registered social worker.

In hindsight I think it was a good thing I had no experience as a social worker as I have realized SW is so much about systems and admin and procedures.  The shelter is a unique environment.  It is not neat and tidy and easy to package or label.  We don't have ABC, 123.  We have: are you actually forking kidding me right now?    The level of dysfunction among our clients is enormous.

Trauma and homelessness, chicken or the egg.  Does trauma have the knock on effect of landing up homeless or is it the homelessness that causes the trauma?   It's both of course.   I can't explain my work environment to you.   It's incredibly intense and demanding.  It simultaneously breaks me down and builds me up at the same time.  A friend came to visit the other day and asked me if my job makes me happy.

Happy?  When I think of happy I think about swimming and ice-cream and lunch with my friends and picnics and my kayak and walking on the beach and camping and family.  My colleagues and our banter makes me laugh and happy but no, my work is too hard to make me happy.  Challenged, fulfilled, stimulated, affirmed maybe, happy no.  Some stuff is so painful I can't share it with anyone except Jo.  We are similar in our work approach and she is the only one who truly gets it.  Wayne & Cardo too to a point.

In the early days I felt the pressure of the people I love waiting for me to crumble.  They all said no, this is too much for you.  You are too soft, you have no boundaries, it is not sustainable.  So they are right in part.  Yes I am soft but a job like this needs soft.  Things that are hard or brittle crack under pressure.  I am flexible and adaptable.  Every person is unique, every family is unique.  My age and experience means I can adapt and I trust my gut and intuition.  Boundaries?  These are vulnerable people.  Of course I care deeply for them.  And I can't switch that off every day at 4:00 and on a Friday go home and park all that for the weekend.  I am getting better at saying no.  At putting systems in place.  At discerning the lies and bullshit that comes with working with addicts.  This is where I have gained wisdom and I am way harder than I used to be.  I love them.  Like really love them.  The adults and the children.  Many of the adults are Daniel's age and younger despite having a few kids.  I feel like their mother.  And the older ones crave mothering too.  Boundaries and affirmation and accountability.  I am not a church goer despite having gone several years ago for a long time.  I cannot reconcile my worlds but this does not mean I don't feel and experience God's love, grace and favour in my life and work.  He is crucial to my work.  

I used to have many a fight over what was good and evil in my churchy days.  Some books, other religions, halloween, sexuality not in the confines of a hetero marriage, even some kids TV shows.  And while I respect these are considered evil for many, my world is more extreme.  The addiction to substances and resultant behaviour, now there the devil has a field day.  Broken people and families and poverty and ravaged bodies.  Children removed from their biological parents which shatters our hearts.  Addicts are trapped and held captive and their children deal with the fallout.  The trauma the kids experience means they want to escape, want out for a little while.  So many start smoking dagga at 10 years old and so it begins all over again.  Trauma-poverty-drugs-homelesness-trauma-poverty-drugs-homelessness.   

BUT, it's not all hopeless.  The culture has changed and half our people are not active users.  This means I can help them to get back on their feet.  And the kids, ah now that's where my heart lies.   They are the hope, the chance to try and break the cycle.  If we can get them in school and keep them there so they are educated, we have a chance of breaking that cycle.  I have a new office which is more private than the previous space.   My shelf is filled with toys for junior school kids and it has morphed into this space where I allow one or two in to sit on Mimi's quilt and play quietly while I work.  The interesting thing is it is the 'naughty' ones who seek this space.  And they sit quietly and play and when they are done they pack up and calmly walk out the office.  They know the toys stay in the office.  It is passive play therapy so while I don't have time to practice, it's enough for now and effective.

I can't do this work for years but I am not ready to leave.   I have too much I still want to do.  As chaotic as it is that week at home after my op was so boring.  The relief of being back and the stream of Hello Auntie Mel as I walk to my office makes my day.  I usually have people telling me all the drama before I have even sat down but it's ok.  It's just how it is.  I am so grateful for my job.  For the opportunity to learn.  For the freedom to run with whatever project or idea I think will benefit the shelter.  I can't be micro managed and work in a little box so I am not sure how I would adapt to a regular sane job.  Jo, I appreciate the opportunity and trusting me to be your fellow parent, and the permission to leave when I can't anymore.  Right now this is where I need to be, loving on our homies.  I am grateful.