Sometimes, time just trundles along. The weeks have rolled into months and now I find that it has been over five month since we separated. Nearly eight since we decided to part. It’s getting to the stage when the anniversary of the end  is heading towards us. Do we mark the occasion. Does it warrant celebration, not for the break itself, but for the way we’ve managed to be.

Or is there a new chapter which we need to write. No one of pleasantness and simple kindnesses, but of actually being able to talk. Because we’re not there yet.

We meet, or rather, we see each other fairly regularly. There’s the dropping off of the dog, the daughter needing a hand, even a chance to watch football downstairs with his dad. All those occasions are politely and gently managed. The “is it all right”s and “do you mind”s are sent ahead so that there are no surprises. And we dance this dance of not wanting to offend or intrude.

And the niceness is really starting to piss me off!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing. Who wants to be the shouty, pointy, accusing, unforgiving couple? disappointed that Jeremy Kyle has been taken off air. This way of being is so much healthier, so much easier to heal from. But what does it say about us? Because I feel that all the things that couldn’t be said at the beginning of the end are still waiting to be said. It’s like those words are all sitting on a shelf, and I’m concerned that they’ll sit up there forever, gathering dust. And we’ll never learn from them

The past few month, the space and distance it has given us, enables us to speak while not being in the pain we were. I remember the feeling when I couldn’t breathe, when the lump in my throat or the knot in my stomach was made of all the things I couldn’t say, the questions I couldn’t ask. Those barriers are smaller – they’ve not gone, but they feel different now.

Our friend in America, when I told him our news, was saddened and sad for us. I told him how we were being, how we were trying to do ‘this’ well. “Good” he said, “because loosing a lover is one thing, but loosing a friend is much worse”

And that’s what it feels like. The physicality of being on my own has become familiar, I’m used to the bed to myself, the dinners to suit, the schedule without checking with anyone else. It’s not always great, it can get a bit lonely or boring or lazy, but it doesn’t feel awful like it did at the beginning. So I can manage the ‘living on my own’ bit.

But I miss the friend I once had. The person I could tell almost anything. And I wonder if we have to finally talk about the one thing we didn’t – us – in order to finally be truly just friends.