Once upon a time in an arena not so far away a woman who had just recently returned to the east coast from LA, who enjoyed free yoga in Santa Monica with her besties, who returned to her old job which she had left twice already for greener grasses, who had been sailing and swimming since she was a month old, walked up to the olympic sized pool in a granny bathing suit to jump in only because she missed the water and it was frigid November so the river was out of the question. She had gained a few pounds since her return from the existential crisis that took her out west, but hadn't yet started the sugar binge that gave her hypochondriac fits of diabetes. As soon as she got in the water though, she calmed her self-consciousness; only to have it rise again when she looked a few lanes down to see an athletic man, dressed in tattoos, and oblivious to her. Immediately, she began to create stories about who he could be. The first was that he was an economics professor who would cover up his tattoos for classes on game theory. The next was that he was a post-doctoral student with the languages department. All of the possibilities teased out in her mind as she swam, pulled handstands, and turned summersaults at the end of the lane that day.
A few months later she was knitting a scarf for a friend out in California on the commuter bus when the man from the pool said hello. and her heart nearly popped out. he wasn't supposed to notice her. She had been looking for him at the pool and hadn't seen him again, so that he recognized her was entirely unexpected and terrifying. He asked what she was knitting and asked if she could make him one too, of course, she said. As it would turn out, they had some mutual friends in the city and she had excuses to see him, enjoying every time he said he would "harass" her to hang out. they would go swimming, catch a coffee break back when she was still smoking and he said camels smelled differently than any other cigarette and that he wanted to eat them.
One day, she told a friend of theirs that her hands get sweaty and her ribs felt tight whenever she would be about to see him. Her friend endorsed his handsomeness and then dropped the curtain to a wizard, he was married. still in the contemplative stages of a possible divorce, which is what the friend had in common with him and which they would commiserate together; but still married. She tried to play it off, but was honest and said that he had never mentioned it; more importantly, she had never asked. Effectively, it didn't really matter though. She was still growing up, still making decisions about her values, still reaching for healthy goals, still seeing what traits in men she liked and what she disliked. She turned to determining if she wanted to be friends with the man, turns out she did and they've been friends ever since.
He helped her establish a no-sugar diet, then a training diet, then a triathlon training schedule. She offered an ear when he began the divorce and separation process. He started dating another triathlete when he moved out of his house, a small petite woman who owned a few dogs. When she was unemployed he helped her out and let her work a contracting job at the museum where she met two ladies to whom he said he was attracted. They were lithe and shorter than she was, both athletic. These bits of information solidified her conviction that she was right not to make waves in their friendship when he was separating, he would never be attracted to her because of her stature. There's nothing she could do about her height or normal weight, for the most part she was content with her appearance. He gave her a rope sculpture, which he said was phallic. She gave him a scarf with images from his paintings woven into the pattern. He gave her a painting which spoke of nurturing and he said that that was her nature.
A few years later a few things happened: He broke up with his girlfriend and moved out onto his own for the first time in more than a decade. Her friend from California came to the east coast to join her for a race. Her friend is muscular, tattooed, still shorter but more like her physique than the others. He asked about her friend's sexual preferences which happened to lie with other women, and said that she was attractive. A few emotions happened nearly instantaneously: doubt, hope, and jealousy. She began to doubt her contentment with their friendship, she began to hope for some romance, and she began to feel jealous of the time that he spent with others which quickly turned to guilt because a friend should be happy for another friend who is working towards his goals and reaching them.
She wrote a message on a little slip of paper; she wrote that she had always been in love with him, that she was so grateful for his friendship which brought her laughter and solace and joy. Then she rolled it up and put it in a bottle. And she held on to it because it seemed a selfish thing to send. She thought that she was being thoughtful to his emotions and what he was working through, she didn't want to add more layers of roles. She imagined that he needed her to be a friend while all these other things were going on in his world.
In the fall, she meditated on the different stories she tells herself and what her life or her day would look like if she didn't believe those stories. While she has never been accused of being logical, this thought process happened: The story she believed was that there was going to be a "right time" to reveal her feelings for him. What that translated into was there was going to be a "right time in order to get what I want." That left the opportunity to reveal this aquifer because intrinsically it meant that she knew her love was worth sharing.
So she took the message in the bottle, wrapped it in a page of a map, tied it up with string from her sangha which had all the metta and all the amazingness of the vipassana retreat, and left it for him on the table in the lobby of his apartment. unconcerned with the outcome, because all we have is right now.
the end.
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