Tag: ok

43. But it gets a little easier each time.

Amid the ‘you can take this’ and ‘I’ll keep that’ element of parting I have ended up with the printer. Not that he was ever really sure how it worked and I don’t think he ever changed an ink cartridge on it. However, he needed a boarding pass printed and so I printed it. He came round to collect it, bringing the dog after a mid-week overnight stay. We talked, sat around my round table while not drinking tea.

But it gets a little easier each time.

We talked of the adventuring daughter, of the anxious dog, of work and decorating and how are things. The lightly brushing past subjects, not too deep but not avoiding altogether.

Then goodbye, and walking down the stairs together. It helps to have a dog (see Blog #10) who distracts us both with overexcited activity.

And a hug.

The first hug. The hug has been somewhere I hadn’t been able to go. I can be friendly, nice, helpful… even cheery. But I have not been able to touch him. So he hugged me. And when he had left I wept. It was another first and won’t be as hard again. It was as if all the not hugging occasions had been building up causing pressure, a blockage.

Still, it’s done now. And I find myself sitting in a strange but familiar place. I am now at ‘his’ place. “Would you mind checking on the flat while I’m away, if you have time?” So obviously I make time. Well, you would, wouldn’t you. And here alone I look around – remembering to water the plant because that’s obviously why I’ve popped in. It’s a strange feeling. It doesn’t hurt like the last time I was here. And I have to be cautious not to be overwhelmed by the desire to put a few things where they would look a little better. But he’s starting to make it look really nice. “Don’t judge me on my cutting in” (as if I would, but a damp cloth when you’re painting around the lights wouldn’t hurt) but I like what he’s done so far.

And did he ask me to check the flat because it needed checking up on? He took my advice on colours but it’s still his work, his decisions, it’s his home. And the kettle I bought him for Christmas sits, well used, on the hob. But did he hug me, ask me to his home to show me that he will be ok too? It feels possible, probable.

Although, he still can’t clean a bathroom properly so nothing’s so very different.

6. So why was that ok for me and not for him?

Its a strange thought that all this ‘normal’ is going to be over. The ‘stuff’ of a relationship. The together, the compromises, the disagreements. Different tastes that somehow muddle along together, choices agreed over. Have we just spent the past twenty years not getting what we wanted and putting up with the results?

So why was that ok for me and not for him?

This wasn’t my choice, but I just gave up the fight to keep it being ok.The consequences of the decision are now starting to hove into view. I don’t imagine that it’s an easy set of sums for anyone. One does not divide neatly into two. And it’s not two as our daughter is very much still at home – and why not. There’s also the cat and the dog. So we have the what to do, how to do, what comes – or, very probably  goes first. This is where I test my resolve. Because, this really isn’t what I want to do. I’m home. I’ve made it home. I’ve painted and sanded and bought things and hung things. The walls are full of pictures I’ve taken (more of that another day) and the garden is full of things I’ve grown. I re-read that and it looks like it’s all been me, but actually, it mostly has. It’s what I do, and here, where we’ve lived for eleven years, it’s what I’ve done.

Therefore my next challenge is how to break this home well, because right now I can’t see how that can be done. I don’t, more specifically, want to do it. Being difficult isn’t going to help, but we are going to be talking money and value and worth. And that’s a whole world of complication and unpleasant that is hard to be nice about. Does the fact I spent my time painting balance out the money he put into a pension that, now, only he will benefit from? Does the time out of work for having out daughter, and rebuilding a new career to fit in with her give me a baby bonus? Or do we now find out how sexist the system really is. Because I am living in my pension. It was always going to be that way.

All these tentacles of a relationship are entwined around everything. This is going to be a delicate operation to pull them apart.