Getting through 'The Handover Procedure'

My ex comes to pick up the kids on Friday evening and catches us all slumped on the sofa watching some animated movie rubbish.

I'm usually better prepared for his arrival - making sure he sees me being creative and interesting with the kids, playing board games, or cooking together or any other over nurturing activity I think will impress him. Not sure why I do this or why this should matter at all anymore. It's not as if he can complain or hold it against me.  Instinctively it seems I'm still seeking his approval in some shape which is wierd.  I would have thought I couldn't have cared less what he thought!

He comes in and plonks next to me on the couch and asks 'What are we watching".  I glance at him - he seems in no hurry to leave and takes off his jacket.

I offer him a cup of tea which he accepts and I sit back down beside him, our knees touching.  Terribly cosy.  Yet another small charge of loss detonates in my chest.  I hate to admit I miss this.

I miss the cosy occassionally suffocating promiscuity of family life too:  moments like this crammed together on the sofa like a comfortable little unit of familiarity. I remind myself that it was this very activity - those Sunday afternoons of inactivity that used to madden and frustrate me, how I complained that we should be out doing some activity, but of course it's harder to remember that right at this moment.

Its only much more recently, I think, that I have allowed myself to comprehend that I miss X himself.  He didn't take the break up well and fell apart for a while but now he seems better then ever, more relaxed and happy and I find myself noticing all those things that I really liked about him at the start.  His confidence, his easy assurance, his slightly smart & cheeky comments designed to make me laugh.

Apparently this is all quite normal.  All part of the experience of moving on.  Missing someone isn't the same as wanting them back, or of regretting the decision to leave them, and regretting how things turned out, isn't the same as thinking you made a mistake.

When the film ends, and they all leave together, I don't feel as relieved as I thought I would. I don't go for the nap I had promised myself, I set very still for half an hour and feel properly bereft.

Compliments of The Guardian | Diary of a Separation | Life and Style.