Physical Proximity

Why does it hurt to have you so far away? Why does it make me want to cry to see you happy with others?

We didn’t really know each other well. As well as one can for a three day depth of sharing of spirits. Then there were moments we saw each other after and chatted or adventured. But there’s only so much you can do with two weeks before separation.

Now I see you in posts, looking great and happy.

Now I see you in dreams, smiling and hugging.

 

I want you to just leave my mind. To take these feelings from me. Our relationship is not like this. Is not like that.

We’re friends. I contact you bi-monthly. You are living life to its fullest. And I am just jealous and alone. Sadly alone, I think.

Stalker, my name is thine; and I don’t like you.

Waiting is happening

Some days when I look at my love life, I just feel like crying. Everyone says wait, it’s worth it. But they’re also the ones who have been on multiple dates and have had 3+ boyfriends/girlfriends in their life. They’re also not really shy or geeky or have a lack thereof of not shy friends.

It’s easy to dismiss this as “it just takes time.” But when that time has been happening for a while, taking time sounds more like “it’s not for you.” Which makes me want to cry. You can’t tell people who are shy that eventually it’ll all work out because eventually is something that seems so far off. The waiting is happening now. And has been for years.

So what makes it okay to say these things? The fact that they waited? The fact that they dated constantly? The fact that meeting new guys who are interested in them is easy? Maybe. And that’s good for them. Makes me jealous, but it is good for them. I just wish it would stop making me feel like I’m so far behind and not good enough for dating.

Alone

Love Isn’t All I Need, But I Do Need It

I felt after reading this, it belonged a bit here. Perspective from my good friend handling her newfound self in the Pittsburgh area.

Girl vs. Pittsburgh

Last night, two of my coworkers and I had a movie night. Like any sensible 20-somethings, we watched Frozen (don’t hate). Olaf is my favorite character (and Sven). Olaf is one of the sweetest characters in that whole movie, and for all his goofiness, he is packed full of wisdom. For example, let’s just talk about the entire scene when Hans has left Anna to die of cold. Olaf shows up to save the day, lighting a fire at risk to his own personal safety. Anna laments that she doesn’t know what love is, and Olaf says, “Love is putting someone else’s needs before yours.” That’s big stuff for a little snowman that hasn’t been alive very long. And then he tells Anna, as his nose drips off his face, “Some people are worth melting for.”

When I got home after the movie night, still pondering these words, I thought…

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Dreams are full of cheesecloth holes

Have you ever had those moments where your dreams lead you down paths of insanity, yet leave you wishing you were still there?

There I was, running down a forest hallway (you know what I mean, the open space that parts down the dark forest with a deep green carpet and bright red, orange, yellow, and brown leaves here and there) and he was following me. Almost catching up to me. I could not wait til he caught up to me.

But then there was an emergency that he had to deal with. He wouldn’t be him if he didn’t deal with it, so he backed off and disappeared into the darkness of the forest hallway dream. Blending into blackness.

I just wanted him to come back and catch up with me. I’m still waiting for him to come and catch up with me.

That dream is following me more and more each day. I long for some guy to come and find me. I don’t know why I’m alone or have been alone for so long. I do not know why the guys I’m attracted to aren’t attracted to me. There could be numerous reasons why, but the truth of the matter is that even with my flaws, I am a pretty cool person and my friends love me.

Instead of fading  into blackness, or a few brightly colored fallen leaves, I want someone to catch up with me and remain even with me.  Before I forget what the feeling of love is like.

It’s been six months since I’ve been near any guys around my age-ish. Which has been nice, giving me time to sort out my priorities and get moving on my life. (Which has been a mess. Still is a bit.) Now though, I see a lot of my friends having kids and getting proposals and I am around my brother and his girlfriend a lot more. Too much reality of romance in my life. It makes me wonder if I will ever feel that burbling of love that makes me giddy.

I miss that feeling.

But maybe this all just a culmination of the chick flick I watched last night. In the dark. Which contained many nature settings. The random firings of my brain at night latching on to the last crush I had.

Either way… I wish I was still there.

Ending as Friends

No, I haven’t friend-zoned him.

It is possible he has friend-zoned me.

Nor are we good friends.

Who am I talking about? Why, the man I couldn’t stop thinking about one night that made me actually post a rambling post. My current relationship with him is, as found in this one blog, in the status of Friendship: Acquaintance.

We both know each other (we’d better, we worked together for a year); we both communicate with hello’s; we’ve had a few conversations (mostly disputes on silly things like songs and which syrup dispenser is the dad and which is the mom); and we wave when we pass. We also are great at tag-teaming the munchkins of our bosses. We sometimes prefer to be around kids rather than people our own age. Him because he only really knows how to communicate about sports (from what I’ve observed) and me because I get ignored in adult conversations a lot anyways (sorry I haven’t gone and done anything crazy or got drunk off my butt at one point in my life).

He was one of the few on camp I could “creep” on. (I love to sneak up on people. Ninjas or pirates? Ninjas!) He handled it just fine. Might even have laughed even more internally at it. He kept a lot of things private. Don’t blame him. I tend to keep things private, too. Work is one aspect and home life another. He also didn’t work with me and live in the same house as me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Many days passed where we wouldn’t even see each other at a time. Which means he never had to see how I fight change, other opinions, and whatever other negative aspects I have. Basically, we were decent to one another.

The last day of my work/living at Camp ended and he showed up to the impromptu bonfire in our front yard (Redneck style. Something we’d wanted to do before leaving). It was a whole group of us, just basically coming to pay respects to the end of a year and the beginning of a new one (new counselors were already on Camp and there with us). I made  a two snark attacks on things he said. Why? Because the more comfortable I feel around a guy, the more likely I am to snark. I like a witty repertoire. He handled my snark fairly well, but after each one I apologized because I wasn’t sure if I was injuring his pride. Which can happen. And I had already been made a fool of by him earlier in the year. Didn’t want a repeat. Anyway, when 11:30pm rolled around, he got up to leave. I had never hugged him before (crazy considering I worked at a Catholic camp and hugs abounded!), so I just gave him a hand to high-five as a final farewell. Then another girl, also leaving tomorrow, got up to hug him. I couldn’t be the geek who gave a high-five, so I stood to hug. And it was a completely platonic hug. He being a foot or two taller than me, there was tons of space between us and ended quickly. Minimal contact.

What is the point of all that? Just to point out that we left as friends. Fraqs, I call them. Two people who can chitchat upon sight, but won’t keep in touch. Two people who are going different directions and probably wouldn’t work out as anything other than friends at best. And you know what? For once, I have no regrets on it and am quite comfortable with our ending.

Which will pick up again in two weeks when I visit Camp for the first ever alumni weekend. But he’ll be PR-ing the whole thing with all the older folks. And the folks he usually hangs out with. So, we’ll shift back to introductions once more. We’ll see, but I’m calling it now.

 

Rolling Thoughts

From days gone by not too long ago (including today):

It’s hard to appreciate a shirtless guy and possibly flirt with him when your parents are hanging over your shoulder watching alongside you. (Watching the work he’s doing, you say.)

It’s a good thing my cousin is moving to Texas because her boyfriend seems really nice and is cute. Like, I bet he’s 24. That’s my age range. Dang it. Too bad we probably have nothing in common. /my life

I crush on almost every guy the first time I meet him. Sometimes, it doesn’t happen. I like those times. Makes talking with them less awkward. I like it better when I get to know them and either a. Hate them, or b. Friend/little brother-zone them. (Getting to know them aka happened only three times.)

I am now home and there are zero chances of actually having a guy friend or having guys be around me. (I don’t regularly visit bars, and if I did, I doubt I’d find a fellow non-drinker. Or rare social drinker.) (I also have no money incoming to go out and dance or anything to find a guy.)

Well. Moral of the post: I have awkward thoughts.

Night Ramblings

This is so stupid.

Stupid crushes. Stupid thoughts. Stupid hormones.

Yes, folks, it’s that time of year again where the pheromones are raging and my hormones have one stagnant thought that quite often my mind will process: Boys.

This year, it’s been quite easy to escape such hormones working at a camp where the wonderful male counselors around me were marvelous human beings who will one day make great dads and in the meantime are great role models for the kids. If that seems like a turn on to you, I totally understand. After all, it usually is for me, too.

The “but” begins with the following facts:

1. The guy was too young for me (Anyone under 2 years is too young for me.)
2. The guy was married
3. We were polar opposites and I’d rather throttle you than go out with you.
4. No one really got to know me this summer because for the first two weeks I was at camp, I was sick with the worst sinus infection ever. (Great first impression. And second. And third…)

Of course, I still thought I’d meet some eligible great guys out here (yes, a dream guy), but I quickly realized that there is no dream guy. As a matter of fact, I’m still realizing that there’s no “dream guy.” Sleeping Beauty, you lied. Every time I wake up from an amazing dream about some random guy, after I bask in the warm glow of his dream love, I realize he’s not real. After all, that’s the point of a dream: it’s fiction, made up, fantasy. “Dream guys” do not exist because everyone has faults and everyone has something that will irk them. No one will always be able to say the right things at the right times. No one will be able to read your mind and know exactly what you want. No, a true relationship is about give and take and choosing to go back to each other and work things out after fights/arguments/disagreements, which will happen a lot. Seriously, if we liked all the same stuff, I’d think the guy was a creeper.

I guess I was just always hoping that there’d be a guy who would at least understand me and make me feel comfortable about being myself around him. I still do hope. Underneath it all, I’m still one heck of an optimist.

Which is why I guess I can’t stop crushing on the impossible. No, not a celebrity. I can’t fall in like with a guy I’ve never met in person. So this is a guy who I know and lives near me now, but is such a dumb thing to crush on I just want to go crawl out into the woods, get injured, and die out there. All right, maybe not the die part, but living injured out in the woods would definitely drive it home that there is no way this crush will work out. Besides, soon my time here at camp will be over (2 and a half months), and that means this crush will be a thing of the past. Like all my other went-nowhere crushes.

So why can’t I stop thinking about him?

“Come in and know me better man!”

–The above quote brought to you by the Ghost of Christmas Present via A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

A spur of the moment post to satisfy my wanton needs. I do desire to write here more often, but I seem to fall into the pattern of having too many people from my current job to hide this from. And they would read it, too, believe me. And then tell everyone about it. Drama at work is never a good thing.

Anyway, let’s move on to the rest of the article, shall we?

Maybe it’s because it’s Christmas, maybe because I went to a fantastic wedding over the weekend and met many beautiful people, but I am feeling very nostalgic about the men I have met in my life. There are many that have come and gone whom I have crushed on, but few that have had the lasting impression that three, possibly four, gentleman will have on me. Why these gentleman in particular? Well, it is because they have known me better.

What I mean by that isn’t that they spent many hours/days/minutes getting to know me. It means that they noticed the little things about me and acknowledged them out loud. A rare quality to find. Others may say they have come to know me, but they saw the minute details, the details that stand out so brightly in my mind’s eye that even the gentlemen I crushed on the hardest don’t even compare. So, no, guys, it’s not you. It’s me waiting for you to see me.

The first time I was ever noticed for something small was by a guy in college. A wonderful guy, full of smiles, always welcoming, and with a steady girlfriend. We would always concoct such wonderful schemes together on how best to pull acceptable practical jokes. Like filling a fountain with bubbles or fish. (Usually bubbles would win out because we didn’t want to kill fish.) One evening, while volunteering together, he noticed that on my wrist was something new. Something that had been hanging around my wrist for perhaps two weeks or so, and he pointed it out and asked me about it. I can still remember how he tugged it, how I blushed when I thought no one noticed it, and how he took it all in stride and accepted it for what it stood. What really mattered to me was the he noticed it.

Then there was the guy who once caught me holding in my excitement, which I do a lot because people are frightened of it. I had just learned to successfully shoot a rubber band off my fingers, like a rubber band gun and had thrown my hands up in the air to celebrate, but then quickly reined it in when I caught him looking at me. No need to scare off anyone else by my true self. He stared at me for a bit longer before turning to face another direction. Out of the corner of his eye he told me that I didn’t need to hold in check who I am on his account. Not hold in my enthusiasm, but who I am. I am still taking this to heart for the moment I find the guy who’s right for me, I’ll know because he won’t tell me to hide who I am or cover my personality with what’s acceptable. Which is happening a lot these days. Hmmmm. That, is another story though.

The last one is more something that struck me as utterly flattering and intensely cute and made my life brighter. One day at work, I discovered the pool I was supposed to introduce to a guard was locked. So, I decided the fastest way in was to jump the fence. (Practical in every way.) As I was doing this and setting up my method for accomplishing this goal, the guard casually mentioned that I am tiny. From any previous posts you’ve read of mine, or if you know me, I do not view myself in any shape as tiny. Yet he did and it touched me because I realized just how big he was and how I really was tiny compared to him. It was…well, quaint. And made me feel completely different in his presence. Special, almost, that he would call me such. We still keep somewhat in touch, he of course having a steady girl as well.

The fourth one is uncertain. There have been a few moments with other gentleman and a group of people who noticed something small about me that surprised me–that I am selfless, that I am deeper than I let on, that I was letting fear rule my life– but none have impacted how I perceive I would want my guy to treat me, if I was dating one. Those first three gentlemen taught me more about how I view myself and want to be viewed than anything else and I am just hoping that one day I’ll be able to meet a guy who acknowledges these things in me, is not taken, and who will deign to want to ask me out on a date. One day. Perhaps. The future is quite uncertain.

Realities of Attraction in my life

So, going to work at a Catholic camp surrounded by amazing Catholic guys you’d think I’d be gaga and in love and dating by now.

You’re wrong.

If you’re thinking there are crushes, you’d still be wrong. There might have been some crushes at first before getting to know the 20-odd some male staff members on camp, but they quickly passed. (Who has time for crushes when your focus is on helping kids have the time of their life 17 hours of every day?) And the reality is, of course, that no one crushed on me anyways. No one ever does.

Oh wait.

Someone does.

The same someones as before. Take a guess.

Yes, you’re thinking right. Once again I find that only to boys in high school am I considered date-able or even attractive. Figures. My life is so screwy. I just can’t figure it out.

Worth it

But really, it’s not about the hair. Being worth it is all about mentality and being secure in who you are.

For the longest time, I’ve been threatened by the kids I guard that one day, they’re going to push me in. And each time it’s said, I cannot help but smile. The question always plagued me: “WHY ARE YOU SMILING AND HAPPY ABOUT THIS?!”

Here’s something new to learn about me:

My hair does not like chlorinated water. Actually, let’s just say chlorine as a whole is against my hair. Unlike most blondes, my trouble isn’t that my hair turns green. If it were that easy, I’d gladly go swimming every day and enjoy the green hair. (Natural green hair? Who wouldn’t want that!) Rather, my hair turns into this tumbleweed mess of a tough Afro. It looks okay, every one says. But if you touch it, it’s like touching bristles. The ends split something fierce in five different new ends and the hair is so tough it breaks brushes. Chlorine doesn’t make my hair brittle; it makes each strand a fishing line. It’s terrible.

Now, to those who say “But you’re a lifeguard! Don’t you swim to stay in shape?” the answer is yes. Yes, I do. Somewhere along my life line, I discovered that there was a certain combination of shampoos and conditioners I could use to treat my hair. Of course, there’s probably something better than what I use, something that only involves one bottle instead of three, but still, it works. As long as I use this chlorine-fighting combination of cond-oos, my hair and I get along.

So why, in all that is safe with my hair before swimming, would I smile and get happy when told I shall be tossed in the pool before I leave?

It’s because I seem to be viewing it as an honor. I’ve always been the type of girl who slides by unnoticed in the background. The cool kids would joke and would literally toss in their friends and I always wanted to get in on that. It was a cool prank full of love. To be considered worthy to be tossed in means you’re being thought of. Usually for a great deal of time before the toss-in.

So, yeah, even though my hair and I will be akin to Bruce Banner and the Hulk, I’m kind of excited to get tossed into the pool. But don’t think I’ll go easy. I’m ready to sit my butt on the ground before they even get me close. Ah, the perks to weighing more than what meets the eye.

There’s this guy….

Every good “girl story” begins this way. The kind of story that every girl hangs off of every word to hear who the hot guy is that caught their friend’s attention. Or to check and make sure that it’s not the same guy that they’re crushing on. Either way, these three words draw you in and once you know and have seen, you always turn skeptical. Usually if it’s good enough for a story, then it’s an actual, honest-to-goodness guy that they meet routinely from time to time.

As a result, it’s rare that this guy they’re crushing on is anything you’ll find special in your own eyes (unless you’re both crushing on the same guy).

So what I have to tell you now is extremely confidential and absolutely, ridiculously senseless.

There’s this guy.

Skip that. Let’s start with today. This guy that there is, well, I’ve known and hung out with his sister a few times from here to there. Right now we don’t even see each other (his sister and I), but of course we’re still “Facebook friends.” Which is why I had a minor heart attack when scrolling through Facebook today and found her tagged in a wedding album. Thankfully, it turns out it wasn’t him, but still, it woke me up to the fact that I was actually crushing again.

One year has come and gone and I crush on the guy who probably doesn’t even remember my face, my name, let alone that he and his sister have known each other for ages.

Of course, it gets worse. He comes with those proverbial “strings attached.” How so? Well, mostly because I only ever see him in church. That’s right. Sunday morning when I should be focusing on the entire community and God present among us, I’m distracted every now and again by him being there. And I shall never let it go past these thoughts because I refuse to turn church into a dating site. Which means I will never make a move, thus never move past this.

The timing of my life and having guys in it just always royally smells as bad as a boys’ room urinal.