success again

I 'stalked' Curtis again today, and found him.  This time I stayed about five minutes and talked with him, and he invited me back and told me to stop in more often and to keep in touch.  So I can't really call it 'stalking' now.  I'm invited.

It started with butterflies in my stomach.  I disconnected from the internet after writing this morning's blog, and took a shower and got dressed.  When I was dressed and ready to leave the house, for real, knowing what I was about to do, knowing that I was going get in my car, drive to State College, and go look for him at his job, the butterflies in my stomach began.  It was going to get much worse than butterflies in my stomach.

I decided to go straight into the door where you're exposed to the produce department right away, instead of sneaking in the other door like I sometimes did.  Then, I thought I saw him, and I walked straight back to where he was.

The butterflies got much worse and became a flood of terror and adrenaline, and my heart was pounding fast.  That is what always happens when I decide to approach him nowadays.  That's because I'm not just working in the next department beside him like I used to.  I can't just wander over to visit him now and then in between tasks.  Instead, I have to walk into a place, deliberately, where I don't belong, where I'm an outsider, where I have no reason to be (because I don't shop there), and I have to go to him with a purpose, and I can't pretend to be doing anything else.  Everyone can see me, including him, and everyone knows I'm an intruder.  It's like in Inception where all the dream projection people turn to look at you, all at once, a thousand hostile faces.  In reality, they're not hostile to me, but they know I exist, at a time when I'd rather they didn't know I exist.

So I saw him.  He was doing my old job.  I worked at that store, and also at the one across town, years and years ago, and during some of my time there, I used to chop fruit for hours and hours, and I got up at 4:30 in the morning to get there.  That's what he's doing now.  I quit that job.  I actually saw him cutting up pineapple the way that I used to.  I remember how it felt to hold the slices of pineapple in my hand, cut out the core, and chop the slice of pineapple with the knife while holding it in my hand, and then cut the skin off.  He was doing that when I saw him.  It wasn't pineapple, it was watermelon or something else that he was working on, but I saw the pineapple sitting on the table there.  He was doing it fast and skillfully.  You get so used to it, after doing it for hours and hours every day, that you can do it automatically.  It was years and years ago, but I can still pick up a knife and I can do the same thing the same way.  I'm not afraid of chopping pineapple anymore.  It looks so scary at first, all hard and spiky and inedible, with the big sharp poky leaves on top.  But I know an automatic routine to get right into it quickly in a couple of seconds.  He knows how to do that now.  But it was hard for me to go to that job at 5 AM.  That job is actually one of the reasons why I officially search for jobs that will let me work in the afternoon or evening, because it was almost impossible for me to get up that early.  That's how I learned.

So I said, 'Hey,' or something, and then said it a little louder.  This time, it was easier to get his attention.  I didn't have to shout 'hey' four or five times like before.  (That was embarrassing.)  It was only on the second 'hey' that he turned and looked at me.  I beckoned him to come over.  He took his gloves off and came over.

So we stood together and talked, and I was having a panic attack at first, but it died down a little bit after talking to him.  I gave him a note and a gift, and I said, 'Same as last time.  Don't lose it.  There's something important in there.'  He thanked me and took it.  Then I could have run away, but I didn't.  I leaned against the counter and talked with him.

He has had a bunch of disasters.  This is a suspicious coincidence, and I wonder if we're being attacked.

1. Kayla and Caden had a car accident. They're okay.  That explains why Kayla and her mother have been driving a different car when I see them in the drive-thru.  I only noticed that a week or so ago.  He said the car was totaled.

2. His aunt had a car accident.  She had to get all kinds of stitches and other work done to fix her hip and her leg.

3. I myself also had a car accident recently.

So that's all the car accidents.  Also, Carrie had a health problem and they were very worried about it, but she seems to be okay again.  Curtis had a tooth taken out.  He had mentioned a sore tooth many months ago when we still worked together.  He's taking a bunch of different pills now.  He doesn't know why they gave him all the different things they gave him.  That fits with the movie I just watched.  Some of it is for the pain.  They also gave him antidepressants, and a steroid.  I don't know what the steroid is for, but it's usually for swelling.  Now, I'm going to get worried about that and I will want to write him notes with all the dire warnings about what those drugs can do.  (Steroids = Cataracts, blindness, violent outbursts...  Antidepressants = Severe withdrawal symptoms, impotence, suicide, murder, worsening of anxiety and depression...)  The doctors won't have told him *ANY* of that!  He won't have any idea.

My love notes are usually 'worry notes,' not love notes.  Now and then, I will write a little bit about 'How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways,' kind of stuff, but not usually.  I sometimes talk about how I want to touch him and I'm afraid to.  Usually it's the 'I'm worried about this, I'm upset about that, woe is me,' kind of thing.  Not really a love note.

He thanked me.  He told me to keep in touch.  He said to stop in more often.  (And no, I understand that he doesn't always expect me to bring him my gifts.  He wants to see me and talk with me.  I know.  My gift is a way of providing support and showing him that I am serious and I mean what I say, and I demonstrate it through action.  But he likes me too.)

'They' have pointed out that it's analogous to feeding the dog or the cat.  The cats and dogs get their food from us, but we also feel that they love us in general, and it's not just a fake love, it's not just pretend, just to manipulate us and get food.  This is analogous.  He was friends with me long before I ever gave him anything.  He didn't get anything 'in return,' except my friendship, all those months when we worked together and talked together.  We worked together for over a year.

I was glad to see him, to stand close to him, to smell him (it's that same wonderful perfume, whatever it is, deodorant or something?), to look in his eyes, to listen to his voice.  I didn't touch him, but I came very close to doing it.  I almost did.  Maybe sometime I will.

I didn't cry this time.  That was different.  Both times when I saw him before, I cried.  I cried before and after seeing him.  This time I didn't cry.

However, my panic attack was really bad after I finally walked away.  I felt overexcited.  I wanted to touch him and I almost did it.  So I was panicking and overexcited, and trembling, and hyperventilating and panting (but I did this quietly, not in a way that anyone around me would notice), and I felt like I was going to gag and throw up.  You could laugh and say, 'Ah, love,' because that's the cartoon version that everyone has seen, someone who gets so excited that they make themselves sick.  That's exactly how I felt.  But I didn't cry.

And so.  Back to life.