Hodgepodge

I've got nothing going on right now. No crushes, no gentlemen upon which to shower my flirtations. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

***

I've seen Nameless Teammate around a few times. I pretend he doesn't exist and he returns the favor. I'm okay with that arrangement. But I did see him out at the bar Friday night. He was wearing pajama pants. At the bar. On a Friday night. I quickly admonished myself for ever taking to heart what he said to me.

***

Statham has somehow resurfaced. We were both at Screen on the Green a couple of weeks ago and he laid his blanket down in front of mine. He turned around and said hello. I was shocked he spoke to me. He had fallen so far off my radar that I forgot he even existed and that we had shared the sex.

He started showing up on my Facebook profile. This isn't an exact science, but the people who tend to show up on the top of my friends list on my profile page are the people with whom I most often interact. Then one day his tiny head appeared in that list and remained there for weeks, which I can only deduce that he's been active on my page.

And then the e-mails started. He wants to go running with me. I turned him down. He invited me again. I turned him down again. Then he made a Facebook event to go running and I respond with maybe, to which I get another e-mail inquiring about my maybe followed by this: ...but I see you're going to [Statham's good friend's] party the night before.... Dude knows my whereabouts.

Saturday night, I was standing in his good friend's kitchen when this text came through: Hi! Looking forward to running tomorrow...  His (ex)girlfriend was standing not 10 feet from me. (Incidentally, I hadn't seen them out at the same time in about a month.)

When I got home, I unzipped my romper and stared at my phone incredulously. Statham treated me like garbage. Had he somehow suffered an aneurysm and forgotten? I hadn't. I began typing.

I'm really tired and am looking forward to getting a good night's sleep. Count me out tomorrow morning.

***

Conor began texting me out of the blue one night. I hadn't heard from my old friend/ex in 9 months. At the end of the conversation, he reiterated that I was the best he ever had. Yup, some things never change.

***

With the absence of boys to flirt with and the hiatus between kickball seasons, I began filling my calendar elsewhere. I dropped in a boot camp one morning. I picked running back up again. I went tubing down the river. I tried out a CrossFit class. I joined the circus for an evening and learned to walk across a tightrope, shimmy up a Spanish web and swing on a trapeze.

While I learned that I have the right attitude and am willing to take myself out of my comfort zone, I also learned that I am not athletically talented. The boot camp instructor saw the color of my face and asked me if I felt light-headed and would I like to sit out the next exercise. "Just because we're hollering at you doesn't mean you have to do it," she told me. I must have really looked a mess. On the trapeze, I was the only person to fall off while hanging upside down.

Sports have taught me the art of forgiveness. Every day I have to forgive myself for not being as good as I want to be. It's okay that I can't do the 21/15/9 push ups. I have to start at whatever I can do and improve upon that. Every day. Forgive myself every day and try to do better every day.

It makes me wonder in what other areas of my life do I need to forgive myself.