So I may have just made both the bravest and stupidest move EVER in my lifetime. Not yet sure how I feel about it. Nevertheless, I'm never going to be able to sleep tonight, so I figure I might as well write what I can remember down so I can remember the state I was in when it happened. (huh???)

So, we went for a swim today. The plan was to swim for 45 minutes at T. Beach, then run back up to the cars and blaze over to Gallery C, where he was going to show me what's so cool about the rehabbed building before 6pm when it closed. And then we'd possibly get dinner, though we hadn't discussed that part officially.

So, we met at 4, walked down to the water, and we swam. We'd originally estimated that we could swim a little over a mile in 45 minutes, but we wound up swimming 2 miles in an hour and ten. So, we were already behind schedule. We got out, got dressed, got up to the cars, turned around, saw the sun setting, and said, "Let's bag the gallery and sit and watch the sunset." Which we did. Sitting on his open tailgate, hydrating.

We watched as dolphins played out in the surf and the sun sank into the very orange horizon, as pelicans shot down from the sky to munch on the occasional fish, as folks walked or skated by. We listend to music on his truck stereo, and talked and joked and sat in silence (my favorite part), and all the while I kept trying to push myself to just break down and say something.

I didn't say anything. I just sat there and wished he'd make a move. Each time he got up to change the music, he'd come back and sit a little closer to me. I didn't know if that was conscious or un-. Still don't.

At some point someone ran by and shouted, "Hi, twids!" It took me a second to recognize Inga, one of my swimmers. She wound up coming back about 15 minutes later and stopping to chat. I wondered the whole time how long it would take her to call Kelly when she got home to say their coach was fraternizing with another swimmer outside regular workouts. That I was sitting watching the sunset from the end of his truck. With him. I had to wonder what that looked like. I didn't offer up any sort of explanation (oh! hey! yeah! Well, here we were, just getting finished with a roughwater swim a week before his race, and we just decided that the sun setting here was so damned pretty we should stay and watch it! Nope. Nothing like that.)

The sun went down, he was starving, and I had to pee so badly I could no longer finish a train of thought, so we bailed and went to pizza.

He bought me dinner, I peed, and we sat outside and waited (for a half hour!) for our food and talked about whatever/notsomuch. The whole time I kept fidgeting and trying to stop. Kept finding myself playing with a rough fingernail or tapping my leg or some such fidgety nonsense.

Just fucking tell him! I kept telling myself.

We ate pizza. We hung around until 8:30 (that's four and a half hours, we're talking now), and then we walked to our cars, he hugged me, and we said good-night.

As I walked back to my car, I was just fucking apeshit at myself. Kicking myself left and right for fucking chickening out for over 4 hours (and really, 4-5 months, yeah?), and never saying what I went there to say. I thought, "You know what? You're never going to make any kind of the headway you want to make in this world if you don't fucking buck up and do the hard stuff."

So, I left the car door open, turned around, and walked in front of his truck. He rolled down the window and I told him to re-park for a second. Then I walked up to his window, and the conversation went something like this:

"Okay, um, okay this is just, um, food for thought. Or something. Okay?"

"Okay."

"So...well it's like...oh, fuck it, it's never going to come out right anyway, so, I really, really like you. And, um, I know that um, my behavior around you is oftentimes sort of, well, weird (sporadic would have been a better word, but I couldn't remember it), or uneven at best. And the thing is, you just make me really nervous."

[does half laugh] "Oh, jeez, nothing I do should ever make you nervous...I mean, I'm just being a goofball most of the time..."

"Yes, yes, I know that, but you do, and it's not because of what you do, it's because I like you (and I'm high school that way, I shoulda added). And, well, um, as your coach, well, I've never had to deal with something like this before, where if I had my druthers I'd give one person on deck all my attention, you know? I mean, well, whatever, I mean I know especially on deck, sometimes I send out weird signals, and that's just because I'm trying really hard to cover for the fact that I'd rather spend all my deck time with you rather than with the rest of them, and I'm trying to remain, uh, professional."

"Uh huh."

"And, um, I know it comes of weird a lot of the time, and I'm sorry about that. But, um, just give me a little time to work it out, you know? I mean, just give me time to, um, get that balance."

"Uh huh." [nods]

...

"Anyway, I just wanted to tell you...that...I mean, I just thought you deserved to hear that. From me. Okay?"

[wtf?]

"Okay."

"Okay. So. Good night. And thanks."

"Okay. Thank you."

[twids does not see his reaction because her eyes are studying the ground as she moves very very quickly away from truck and back over to open car.]

And off he went. Pulled out, waved to me as I passed him later near his turn-off, and then we were home.

I have no idea what I thought would happen. I think I thought he'd launch out of his truck and plant one on me the likes of which no Sabrina-the-Teenage-Witch-type-comedy-romance-movie could match. But of course, that didn't happen. He also didn't say, "Yeah, well, you've been making those feelings painfully obvious recently, and I'm glad you said something. But I'm sorry, I just don't have the same feelings toward you."

He didn't say anything! He just drove off. What's that, shock? Fatigue? Total loss as to what to say to the idiot standing before you bearing her heart? Total confusion as to what exactly it was that I just said, because it was so incoherent no one in their right mind could have follwed it?

And why, WHY did I say I was telling him this because of the way I COACH??? Why couldn't I just go with, "I really like you, I get nervous around you because of my feelings for you because I'm really a high school child rather than the 30 year old you think you see, and I don't know if you feel the same way about me or not, but I thought you should at least know how I feel, since the whole coaching thing can get in the way of the clarity of my signals." Why couldn't I just say that? Huh?

So, it's out there. I said it. I'm WAY proud of myself for saying it all? Regardless of the tack I took or how stupid it all sounded? But I'm fucking FREAKED at the void of knowledge concerning his reaction.

But, I did this for me, right? I did this because he should know, I should be able to be honest, I should be able to put my heart on the line, take risks, push through the fear. And I should be able to deal with whatever happens. I cannot control others' thoughts or emotions or reactions to my actions. I just have to make my own and deal with the rest. Right? No matter how difficult it is, how much rejection I might have to take, or how horribly vulnerable it might make me feel. Because I have to maintain the hope that, some day, somewhere, someone will appreciate both the honesty and the person behind the honesty, and I'll wind up with one of those great people in my life who feels exactly the same way about me as I do him/her.

Right?

Fuckin' a. This whole turning over a new leaf thing? With honesty and no fear? Is fucking scary and exhilirating at the same time.

And Christ. If he comes back with no reaction, or if he comes back with a rejection? I'm gonna be seriously destroyed.

Posted by twids at 9:23 pm