Tag: talking

55. I thought ‘I don’t want to be friends with you’.

Last Sunday morning I walked the dog with the daughter. A nice and energetic walk around Tooting Common, watching the dog bounce through the long grass and chase sticks into pond. It was sunny and warm and easy. And it helped start a strange day well. It’s our wedding anniversary today. I didn’t quite know what to do with it. I felt sad, but not overwhelmingly so. I felt disappointed and slightly cross. But mostly I just felt at a bit of a loss.

It was difficult not to keep remembering what a great day we’d had. (Read 16. And then I talked about our wedding.) But I remember also that he went for a run the afternoon before the wedding and left me and our friends to put up the gazebos in the garden and the flowers on the tables. Always that one step away from a full commitment.

This evening we went out for something to eat together. I shy away from saying that we went out to dinner, it has the ring of a date about it, and I had no intention of it being that. It was my idea, to do something positive when I was feeling rather wobbly. I think the anniversary had upset me more than was obvious. It was, maybe coincidentally, the start of ‘one of those weeks’.

Anyway, we met in a lovely, quirky, joyful little restaurant on the hill. It’s a place I often go, and we used to come together on occasions. I know the man who runs it, the smiliest person in the world who always greets me with a “Hello Sister” and a joke about my meal choice. I think I needed to know in advance that, even if the evening may be ‘iffy’ the food and the service definitely wouldn’t be. It was a bit noisy outside, and looked like rain, so we moved indoors, where it was just as noisy because there were musicians rehearsing. So we could chat, but only loudly, and I didn’t really feel like loud. I hadn’t  exactly prepared a list of subjects but the ones I did want to, hopefully, get into weren’t really for projecting across a table.

But we did talk, well, we chatted. About his dad and the holiday home, about the dog, his decorating, his yoga, a bit about my work, about the daughter and her plans. It was ok. It wasn’t great. I’m not entirely sure what I expected. I know I hoped, at some point, to be asked how I was doing, but it didn’t really come. I’m not entirely sure he want’s to know. Because, in reality, it’s not so much that he’s moved on, it’s that real understanding that he wasn’t truly there in the first place. And that’s the sad realisation. The feeling that I get when we talk, when I see him is that I don’t really miss him, because he wasn’t properly here. He spoke of the security that he knows he doesn’t have now; the company, the intimacy he misses, but I don’t think he misses me.

He spoke about aloneness, but as a thing to get used to, not that he was lonely. About the plans and ideas he’s starting to have for his future. He talked about the difficult relationship he still has with his parents, and maybe that will never change. And as we sat, surrounded by the noise and bustle, I thought ‘I don’t want to be friends with you’. Because, while not for one moment to I want to get back together, I would, for once, like to hear something from him about me. Because he’s the one that left and I’m the one that made it easy for him. I’ve been actively supportive and helpful to make the process better. I know it’s been less of a drama for those around us, But even a small acknowledgement of what I’ve been through would be nice. Isn’t that what friends do? Even things out a bit? Understand what the other person is going through?

I don’t want to hear all about him, and wait for a suitable moment to tell him about me. I want to be asked. So I don’t want to appear to be ‘like a friend’, because that’s not the type of friend I need. I can’t be bothered. Really I can’t. And the difference now is that I don’t have to.

So I’ll still be nice, because, after all, we are doing this well. But that’s what it is. Being nice. I’ll be friendly. But he’s not a friend.

 

 

 

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.

50 Because now we are not “us”.

It’s a strange a sad feeling to talk on the phone to someone you know so well but you can’t be how you were. It’s constantly re-navigating. Each step, each word has to be considered, because now we are not “us”. Everything is different. And today, speaking about the dog and her current issues, it felt hard and complicated and strained. The ease and natural flow of a chat between friends not yet (will it ever) reached, the confident communication of those who know place with each other has gone. These phone calls are not fun.

I think of phone conversations I have with those I speak regularly. Chats that go on for ages about everything and nothing. Moaning about family members that gets all those grumps off your chest. There are belly laughs about ridiculous things that remind me I love laughing and don’t do enough of it at the moment. Bouncing ideas around and having my opinions tested by those who love and know me well. I’d be lost without this link.

I spend much of my working day alone, my partner in paint left a few years ago to more out of the big city to a quieter life of the West Country. So the phone, and especially my essential headphones, are often my social media of choice. I am well skilled in painting a ceiling at the same time as catching up on the latest gossip, I can paper and partake of a good grumble better than anyone.

So I am happy on the phone. It’s not difficult to be myself, because who else am I going to be?

But I don’t know how to be with him. It still feels so sad, being awkward while trying not to be awkward. The effort of being nice is not so much of an effort, but the need to be so in itself is just a painful reminder that, once upon a time, he was one of my go-to people I’d chat to in my day.

Just another lesson to learn.

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.

26. We sort of had a practice ‘final goodbye’ today. 

I’m alright until I think about the leaving bit. Really, I can be calmly discussing how he needs to take the stereo because it’s really his. I can make helpful suggestions about what order will be the easiest when he talked about the new place and what he’d like to do to it. I laughed about how the dog is going to have to get used to different smells as there’s a kebab shop so close.

But the moment I think about watching him go I just hollow out. It feels like tomorrow is the day of the funeral. The dreaded day that, I know, once it’s over I can start the other life, we both can, but until then it’s the dread and the weight of it presses down.

So, strangely, but nicely, we sort of had a practice ‘final goodbye’ today.

I was trying to do some work on the laptop, with not much success and very little enthusiasm. And he came into the room where I was working, and just stood. ‘Are you ok?’ he asked. ‘Not really’ I replied. “you?’ ‘No, not really’. And then that hollow feeling filled me.  ‘We ought to do some of the sorting together, because I don’t want you to come back and find empty spaces. It’ll be horrible’

So we talked about stuff. And it was ok. Not great, but ok. And I think we both felt understood and appreciated. It helped. He then made some soup so we ate together. It felt calm. Sad, but calm. He said he was setting off early tomorrow – an early dog walk for me then. And tonight he was going to the BFI to see a film. ‘I’m going to walk there’, (it’s only a couple of miles) ‘Do you fancy joining me for a bit of the way?’

That may seem an odd request, but it’s something we’ve done before. It’s a 20 minute walk down to Brixton so it’s a good stop off point for me and I hadn’t moved from the flat all day. So we walked. And slowly talked. About Christmas. About the daughter – how good she is with the generation above us when we both get so impatient. How much better you feel when you’re happy and why people (especially members of the family) seem to think their illnesses and allergies are THE most interesting thing about them. We talked about holiday plans, work coming up, even the weather.

And then came the point when I needed to go home. We needed to go in different directions. So we stopped.

Hugged.

Parted.

I walked home alone. With a pocket full of freshly damp tissues.

It won’t make the real thing any easier, but at least I’ll know how many tissues I’ll need.