The Nature of Crushes
I don't really crush that often, but I do tend to crush *hard.* Case in point: today, I was reviving my Franklin Planner for work. I haven't carried this one in quite awhile - the latest pages in it were dated 2003. As I was cleaning out the old pages, and seeing what items were still salvageable, I turned a page and found an old and smudged yellow post-it stuck to the back of a divider. My heart did a little happy stutter at the sight. The ink is from one of my green pens, and the handwriting was instantly recognizable.
"had fun last night! good luck next week--"
'Next week' was the first week of June, 1999. The week we moved to WI. The note was written by Alison Lee, the woman I had been crushing on practically since starting at RMT in 1994. 'Last night' was our second get-together of that day. First we went to lunch (she paid) and then we met for drinks & dinner (she paid again). She had stopped by my office the next morning, and since I wasn't there, she picked up my pen and left me a note. Previously, sitting next to each other at business functions and chatting in that environment, or her requesting my help with producing schedules for her proposals was our usual interaction. These two meals were the only time we ever spent alone together. At the end of the evening, we hugged goodbye. I saw her a few more times when I made return trips to the SC office, and she always lit up and hugged me when I was there. But she never really made any effort to keep in touch. I tried from time-to-time to renew our acquaintance, but it always seemed so one sided, that finally, the last time I was in SC (2 yrs ago), I didn't even try to go see her. I thought then that I had finally put the crush to rest.
Heh. Imagine my surprise today, realizing that I've still got that crush. It doesn't burn as brightly as 2 or 5 yrs ago, but it's still alive. And the post-it is still in my planner. Sometimes I feel dumb looking at it. I should just throw the damn thing away. But mostly, it makes me smile. So I'm keeping it.