Inspiration (5/21/08 Wednesday)

I won't dwell on the passed time. I stopped writing because it seemed self-indulgent and personally unproductive. But as I've come to understand that I must accept a certain degree of all my shortcomings as my nature--i.e., not strive to be perfect--I must accept, too, the need to write once in a while, for whatever purpose or to whatever end.

I write now because I have no one to trust with what I need to tell someone: I have a crush--an infatuation, to be less teenish-- with someone at work. It's Julie, and it seems to have come on suddenly--that is, its growth was unnoticed until it blocked my view.

I suppose it's not so much that I can't trust someone else with this secret, but that it wouldn't be fair to burden anyone else with it. Stacey would be severely tested to keep it to herself, though, for me, she would; and Mike, though he would absolutely not tell anyone else, might himself have some feelings for Julie, and I'm not sure that upon hearing my confession, he would confide the same in turn but for respect for me would either step aside emotionally or quietly resent me.

I tried to tell Mike last Friday, when we met for a casual dinner, as we unoccasionally do, but I never got up the courage or found the opening that allowed the topic to come up on its own.

Stacey has been out of touch lately. Though we are close, her almost child-like self-absorption often precludes me sharing my own life details with her. I haven't come close to broaching this subject with her.

I have nothing to lose talking to Matt about Julie; he doesn't know her, doesn't work with us. Maybe that's why I haven't tried telling him. Or maybe it's the anticipation of sober advice that makes me hesitate. I feel full enough of my own sober advice. What I want is relief of this burden, yet I can't simply give it to someone else. I certainly can't tell Julie. I'd like to believe that if anything is there it will flower, but I'm not confident, and less so every day, as I find more "reasons" and "indications" pointing to her lack of interest in me, and more faults in myself that justify it.