This post is actually about the film I saw tonight, the one with Will Arnett and Laura Dern. But I feel like the title is quite apt for this blog too. I’ve gotten out of the habit of writing lately. For lots of reasons. But that’s a story for another time.

Tonight, I was supposed to go to the cinema with my kid (and my ex, because we still do family things together) but at the last minute my kid decided that he wasn’t up for the cinema tonight. So my ex and I went instead. We don’t normally do things that feel or seem datey. We don’t go out for meals on our own, to the cinema. We’ll shop together because shopping feels safe and less confusing. But tonight there was a Scene Unseen showing at the local cinema and we went to see it.

It shouldn’t be weird. It’s been five fucking years of us being separated. And he knows I’ve had a million dates, and lots of sex with people and one very significant relationship with someone in that time. And yet it was weird tonight.

Because the film? Is This Thing On? I hadn’t realised it was about a man who starts doing stand-up comedy to help him process his feelings about his separation from his wife. That’s pretty much the entire story. About how these two people weren’t happy in their marriage, where it went wrong, how they both felt after it ended.

And it was a sweet film, it was emotional. I enjoyed it. But it was also weird because my ex husband can be really fucking weird about watching films or hearing stories or any mention of divorce. I mentioned in passing about a colleague getting a divorce and my ex husband went silent and weird. And I remember thinking ‘is the whole topic of anyone getting divorced off limits now?’

But I thought it was an interesting story. I wouldn’t personally turn to comedy or stand in front of other people to talk about my relationship. But I might write an anonymous blog. And I know how much that has helped me. So it was a lovely story to be watching.

Thankfully my ex husband and I don’t like sitting next to each other in the cinema so I didn’t have to sit next to him as he got weird about this story. But I did have to deal with the weirdness after. I wasn’t sure if when I left the cinema if it would be silent, awkward. Or if he’d react differently.

Tonight, he pounced on the conversation. Almost in a ‘SEE, see how cool I am with talking about this, I’m fine, FINE’ sort of way. Because as soon as he saw me, he said ‘So what did you think?’ in a kind of aggressive way. I was expecting us to have the conversation in the car so I was startled and said ‘It was …nice.’ And I don’t think ‘nice’ is the word I meant to use, but I was under pressure!

And so he rambled all the way back to the car about it. In a nervous way. In a ‘I need to keep talking to prove how okay I am with it’ way and it was like I picked up on that nervousness and every time he went quiet I filled that space up with more words. All the words. We just traded words back and forth, back and forth.

All the way home.