53. In that first embrace of hello there is an armful of feeling.

Well, there’s another first bitten the dust – if that’s the way to phrase it. Another thing that, should it happen again, won’t be so strange, so unknown. He had a party. A small flat warming do. Just a manageable gathering of people, and I know all of them.

So there was the challenge. And it has been rather a day of it. I had morning spent chatting to people I haven’t seen for months who go to his classes every week. I bumped into them going for a post yoga class brunch. At least I haven’t had to “do the ‘We’ve broken up’ talk, though I’ve no idea when he actually told them about us. But those first meetings with people who know us both, know the news, it feels strangely sad.

There’s nearly always a hug, and in that first embrace of hello there is an armful of feeling. The tentative and awkward but trying not to show discomfort hug, the ‘don’t really know how to handle this’ hug; The ‘it makes no difference’ hug; The ‘well, isn’t life a fucker’ hug. And throughout today I have received all of them.

It was a pleasant enough evening. On advice (much needed) I arrived at the later end of the ‘get here between 7 and 8’ request. (You’re a guest, I was reminded, and you can get there when you bloody well like.) It felt better to join the gathering, not help start it – my usual role at a party. But this wasn’t our doo, I wasn’t there to help or entertain. Just to chat, and have a drink and eat too much cheese.

At one point we sat together and talked. And it’s still strange. So familiar and comfortable, yet distant. Like a video call in a way. But there are phrases that still feel so loaded. “You’d really like her” he said, about his latest one-to-one yoga client.  And that felt odd. Does he still think about my likes and dislikes? Do I pop still into his head? Will there soon be a “her” that I may have to consider?

And then it was easier to just leave. Enough face shown, plenty of being sociable, but home in time for tea and toast. Because one first always reminds me that there are probably plenty of others yet to come.