Well, I am feeling a lot more positive today. There were some really good things yesterday that I looked over because it is easier to see the negatives - or they are felt more acutely.
I realised he doesn't hate the house; he was in escape mode when he had to do the packing. When he got to the house and we were having a bacon sandwich and he was playing with the cat he was fine and when we got back to the house his mood turned when he had to get his stuff together. He was always terrible at that kind of thing as he doesn't know how to approach it. I had to chuckle when I realised instead of packing he was playing around with the computer - exactly what he used to do! He was also awkward when his sisters boyfriend was here. I realised he was trying very hard to save face.
The car journey was really nice. He had something to focus on (the road!) which took pressure off him and that was when he relaxed and chatted. When we were face-to-face in the restaurant he got tongue tied and I asked him questions which relaxed him as he could answer them. The fact that we were relaxed in the car, chatting, singing, laughing and him playing percussion on the steering wheel, as he used to, was nice. Also, I was singing to myself downstairs while taking down a shelf and he was upstairs accompanying me was good. lol!
Another thing was we drove past a place and I reminisced about how I had been for a job interview there and got rejected and how horrible it made me feel. He tried to cheer me up by talking about my job now and asked how I got it. I reminded him - he saw it in the newspaper and brought it home for me. To me it is the fact that he found it for me which is special; to him he was impressed that I managed to get a job that was advertised in that paper as they are so popular. So that was a nice moment.
We laughed over my lack of sense of direction. It used to happen alot when we were together. We used to drive up the A1 road loads and that was the road we were on yesterday and I looked around and I didn't recognise it and could have sworn I'd never been on that road before and he chuckled a lot at me.
He was really into the cat, so much so that when his sister's boyfriend was round he was cooing over her looking out at the window at him and also showing his sister's boyf, who was totally uninterested, her scratching carpet!
We talked about what he wanted out of his new job and he said lots of responsibility. He was totally proud of getting it and I was encouraging and praising.
He realised how much work I had put into packing up the house and thanked me. Once he was here and engaged he was more focused on what he could do to help i.e. coming up one more day to collect the rest of his stuff and help me move my stuff also. He also expressed in his text that I should let him know if there was anything he could do to help me find somewhere. I think with him, that he has to see stuff to be engaged and the thing he is doing at the time gets all his attention to the exclusion of other things and most of the time that is work. If you try to pressure him he runs.
When we were talking about people at his work and he was talking about his boss who is married with kids but is totally in love with his secretary but wouldn't leave his wife because of cultural stuff. He said that his boss had been closely quizzing him about what he had said to his parents when he left me and he said he was totally honest with him. That was hard to not react to, I wanted to say 'you still haven't told me!!!' And then I thought that I really don't want to know but I thought it was strange that he felt comfortable enough to talk about that stuff with me. I just nodded acknowledged what he was saying; I had to hold my tongue but also didn't really know what to say.
Basically I think the take away is that if he is uncomfortable it isn't instigated by me anymore and he is no longer running from me.
I also realised that we have to get to know each other again and I think that is going to be key. It is like we both know each other so well but we need to bond over new things again - there is a lot more to discover if we are to bond again but I don't feel like that is impossible. I shall just have to work out how to do it.
Hmmm... eternal optimist or fool, I'm not sure. I'm prepared for all eventualities though. I'm excited about the future too in a new place.
He was also awkward when his sisters boyfriend was here. I realised he was trying very hard to save face.