Three days had passed since I left Stephen and last saw him.
I was beginning to notice some changes.
Nothing particularly dramatic. No great revelations or sudden transformations. Just small differences in my everyday life that might once have passed unnoticed.
I was sleeping better.
I had more energy.
I was waking in the mornings feeling rested, rather than beginning another day already feeling tired.
It surprised me.
For so long, I had been accustomed to feeling exhausted. I had put much of it down to work, the demands of everyday life and perhaps simply getting older. But now, after only three days, I was beginning to wonder how much of that tiredness had come from the constant emotional strain of my relationship with Stephen.
There had always been something going on.
Something he had said. Something he had done. Something I was worried he might do.
A conversation we needed to have. An explanation I was trying to make sense of. Another problem that needed resolving.
And even when things were relatively peaceful between us, there was always the possibility that something else was just around the corner.
I had lived with that uncertainty for so long that I barely noticed it anymore.
But now, with Stephen no longer occupying so much of my attention, I was beginning to notice its absence.
And it felt rather nice.
I was also taking more interest in what I was eating and drinking.
For a long time, I had been getting through the day on rather too much tea and cola. I hadn’t completely neglected my health, but I hadn’t been giving it much thought either.
Now I was taking smoothies and fresh juices to work. I was thinking about what I fancied eating, what might give me more energy and what would make me feel good.
It wasn’t part of some ambitious plan to reinvent myself.
I hadn’t suddenly decided to become a healthier, fitter or more disciplined person. I hadn’t made a list of things I needed to improve or promised myself that this was the beginning of a wonderful new life.
I was simply finding myself interested in these things again.
And that was rather encouraging.
I was talking more to my family and ex too, and reconnecting with my best friend.
Not because I was desperately unhappy and needed comforting. In fact, I wasn’t feeling particularly unhappy at all.
I just wanted to talk to them.
I wanted to hear what they had been doing, what was happening in their lives and what they were looking forward to.
It made me realise how much of my emotional attention Stephen had been consuming.
I hadn’t stopped loving my family or friends. I hadn’t abandoned them or deliberately pushed them aside. They had remained an important part of my life throughout our relationship.
But I could see that I hadn’t always been entirely present.
I could be sitting with someone, enjoying their company, while another part of my mind was occupied with Stephen.
Sometimes I was worried about him.
Sometimes I was upset with him.
Sometimes I was wondering what he was doing or thinking about something I needed to say to him.
And sometimes, even when there was nothing particularly wrong, he was simply there, occupying my thoughts.
I hadn’t realised quite how much space he had been taking up.
Now I was beginning to enjoy the uncomplicated pleasure of spending time with people I loved.
There was no uncertainty to unravel. No hidden meaning to decipher. No need to worry about whether their affection was genuine or whether something was about to go wrong.
I could simply enjoy their company.
And I had missed that.
I had also taken a break from my online game.
For a long time, it had been somewhere I could disappear for hours.
There was always something happening. Someone to talk to. Something to organise. A problem to solve or a little victory to celebrate.
I genuinely enjoyed it.
I liked the people, the camaraderie and the sense of belonging to something.
But I was beginning to wonder whether it had also served another purpose.
Perhaps it had provided a welcome distraction from everything else that was going on in my life.
Somewhere I could immerse myself in problems that were relatively straightforward, where I had some control over the outcome and where I didn’t have to think about Stephen.
It wasn’t that the enjoyment had been false.
I had simply found something that was both pleasurable and distracting.
And now, strangely, I didn’t seem to need that distraction quite so much.
I still liked the game.
I just wasn’t particularly bothered about playing it.
I found that interesting.
There seemed to be quite a difference between doing something because you enjoyed it and doing something because it offered an escape.
Perhaps, without really knowing it, I had been doing a little of both.
What surprised me most about those first three days was how naturally these small changes were occurring.
I wasn’t making any particular effort.
I wasn’t forcing myself to be sociable, trying to distract myself from Stephen or setting myself goals.
I was simply going about my ordinary life.
And yet my ordinary life was beginning to feel a little different.
There seemed to be more room in my head.
I could think about what I wanted for dinner without simultaneously wondering what Stephen was doing.
I could have a conversation without part of my attention wandering back to some unresolved problem.
I could go to bed without feeling that there was something I needed to discuss, understand or worry about.
For years, so much of my thinking had revolved around questions I couldn’t answer.
Did Stephen really mean what he said?
Was he telling me the truth?
Did he still love me?
Would things ever change?
Was there something more I could do to help him?
And, increasingly, what on earth was I supposed to do about all of it?
Even when I wasn’t consciously asking myself those questions, I think they were there somewhere in the background.
Like a noise you become so accustomed to hearing that you stop noticing it.
Until one day it stops.
And suddenly you realise how much quieter everything is.
That was rather how these first few days felt.
Quieter.
Less complicated.
I was no longer having to consider Stephen’s needs, his feelings or his latest difficulties alongside my own.
If I wanted an early night, I could have one.
If I fancied calling a friend, I could call them.
If I wanted to spend an evening doing absolutely nothing, there was nothing stopping me.
These were hardly extraordinary freedoms.
But I was beginning to appreciate them.
And I was beginning to wonder whether some of the things I had come to accept as normal were not particularly normal at all.
Perhaps being constantly tired wasn’t simply a consequence of having a demanding life.
Perhaps my mind had been working much harder than I realised.
Perhaps I had become so accustomed to the emotional demands of the relationship that I had forgotten what it felt like not to have them.
Of course, it had only been three days.
I knew perfectly well that the difficult emotions might still be waiting for me.
I had been through enough separations from Stephen to know that the first few days were not necessarily an indication of what would follow.
I knew there might come a morning when I woke up desperately missing him.
I knew the longing could return, along with all the familiar doubts and the temptation to reach out.
I certainly wasn’t congratulating myself on having recovered.
I hadn’t.
And I wasn’t trying to convince myself that life without Stephen was suddenly wonderful.
It wasn’t wonderful.
It was just a little easier than I had expected.
I was sleeping better, eating better, talking to people I loved and finding pleasure in ordinary things.
And none of it required any particular effort.
I found myself wondering how much of my life had been shaped around managing the difficulties of our relationship without my even realising it.
I had expected Stephen’s absence to leave an enormous hole.
And perhaps, emotionally, it eventually would.
But for now, something else was happening.
The demands that had occupied so much of my time and attention were beginning to fall away.
And underneath them, I was discovering that there were parts of my life I hadn’t lost at all.
They had simply been receiving rather less of me than they deserved.
Including me.
