46. So are we starting to be friends?

Today, he and I have been working together. All day. And it’s been good. It’s been friendly, chatty and only a bit weird. In fact really, only weird in moments.

He used to help me with occasional days on big jobs. So, as I’m currently working on a big job, he offered. I said yes. I knew it might be odd, but the advantages a the day’s work  really outweighed the potential strangeness. And I thought if we can be together for a day then that might make future times much easier to manage.

And it familiar, but not painfully so. There were moments when I had to step back from feeling completely normal, because our normal isn’t the same any more. But that’s not the worse place to be. We still have patterns that we slip into and some of those are worth keeping. Knowing how someone likes their coffee isn’t a thing to unlearn so you have a distance, and the fact that we both brought hot-cross buns in as a treat for each other made us both laugh – they’d always been a favourite of ours, and a separation isn’t going to change that.

So we sanded and prepped and filled the day away. We talked of family, of the dog and her recent anxiety issues, of friends and outings and the daughter. We spoke of the plans for his roof terrace and the cherry-blossom on the street outside. I asked about which evening the pooch could go for a sleepover and this was the stumbling moment, because he was busy some nights, and I couldn’t ask why.

But I told him, because it felt right to. “It’s weird, because I was about to ask you where you were going and I’ve just realised it’s none of my business.” and even that was ok. “you can ask, it’s fine”.

So are we starting to be friends? Is it this simple? I look back over the things I have written and know how much all this hurt in the beginning, but it really isn’t at that level any more. Has being nice served us so well? I wonder how I will feel if the answer to “where are you going?” was not out with friends I know well.

But being angry wouldn’t have helped me. And I’d rather be better than that. I have enough to think about, with an anxious dog and a life to plan as my starting points then I really don’t feel that I need that weight of negativity. It’s just I wasn’t really sure it would work. We’re not fully there yet. I still have moments when I feel sad, I still find saying goodbye to him the strangest of pains. And I still can’t touch him. But we can talk. We can be together without incident or tears or drama. I think, so far, we are doing this well.