Tag: moments

57. Time passes, dear reader

Some months ago, not a year, not quite yet, I began to write. I put thumb to phone and let go of things I was holding. I typed at my laptop when I felt the need to release. I sent out, in their strange digital form, these messages in a bottle – albeit floating around the internet rather than bobbing on the beautiful briney sea.

With each one sent I felt a small space in my lungs to breathe a little bit more. Each time I look back on the words I set down I see how far they are away from me now. And how close.

Because the line on which I write takes me forward and back. While I think I’m building, healing, strengthening – and I am indeed doing all of these – I am still grieving and hurting.

It is in strange moments that I find the pop of a memory. Things that I had almost forgotten- or rather things I had not thought about for some time.

Tonight I have been presented with a rack of cd’s that once lived in our home and are now at his. Resentment bubbled briefly as I looked through the titles, some we chose together, some were presents. Some were bloody well mine! But they are still only things. Would it make me feel better to take them? Not really. I only need to ask or mention it, rather than cause an issue and made a fuss.

Music was often a point of difference. I love it, but enjoy peace more. Music isn’t something I “put on” but for me it adds to what I’m doing. For him it was on and to be heard by all. I minded if we were together, a choice inflicted. Now, I hardly play any – although often have the radio on.

But the likes of little thin boxes brought back thoughts of times together. Gigs and parties and holidays when we brought home the soundtrack, having our memento to hold. Those now sit on a shelf. Does he just hear the music? Does the reason for the disc not exist for him or is it just about the tunes?

He’s not here to ask (I have a healthy nice reason for being in his home, by the way! I’m not some weird stalker!) but I don’t think I will.

Some things are better left unsaid.

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.

33. So many moments.

We’ve seen each other a couple of times this week. Not for any reason in particular. It’s been ok. Almost pleasant, but with a weight. I think I’m ok, but then a wave of sadness hits and I realise that I’m not. Oh! how that wave hurts.

Today he popped over to see his dad, as they’re working together on something this afternoon. The dog went into meltdown as she was so pleased to see him. And he came upstairs, asked first of course. Hugs with the daughter in the kitchen, so good and so hard to see, when I stand by the door with my arms round myself.

I hand him a few more things I have found of his while I’ve been dissecting the cupboard. And we stand in the hall, talking about how cold his flat is and his new yoga class. We are surrounded the whole time by the photographs I have taken over the years of our lives together. Lots of joyful, funny beautiful photographs. Lots of him and daughter, some of us all, some of just us. I take good pictures. They aren’t your average family holiday picture. And I was, am, always the one with the camera. I have recorded so many moments, printed and framed them and hung them on the wall.

There is a new moment. The one where I ask him if he’d like some of the pictures. Because it seems only reasonable. We look at some of the pictures we both know he loves. There are several pictures of he and daughter on Formby beach. We used to go there regularly when we went to visit my mum in Liverpool. A wonderful, sprawling beach with great light and huge sand dunes. The first time, when the daughter was a toddler, I took a photo of him walking with her walking away from the sea. Holding hands, him carrying his big boots, her with a little sandy bum. We re-took the photo over the years – not the bare bum, but them walking together, away from the sea, while she grew to his elbow then to his shoulder.

And I grieve for the shots I’ll no longer take, and for the pictures no longer there. Not just for the picture itself, I could reprint if that were the case. But for the end of that life we had, the moments we shared. I’m saying goodbye to all of that, just in photo form.

The walls will have more gaps – and what do I fill it with now?