The Gaze

10/21/2012 The Romantic 3 Comments

The beautiful thing about an anonymous secret blog  is that I can vent my emotions to the public at large, and yet no one knows it's me. I can skip the awkward facebook status update that I know I'll regret in the morning and just release my woes here. And no one that really knows me will ever be the wiser.

Today I feel resigned to spinsterhood. I feel resigned to the fact that I will be the maiden aunt. Today I feel as though I'm Miss Bates personified: awkward, bumbling, the forever third wheel, and not quite socially aware as I should be.

I suppose my feelings today are due to a combination of different things, but mostly it boils down to an old relationship I was thinking about. There was a person I met awhile ago.  I told him once that he was the best friend I ever had at that point in my life. Our relationship has been so personal and sacred to me, I've never even mentioned it here... We were close. Maybe too close. He had a girl friend you see, and I was preparing to preach the gospel to the people of Korea.

We had conversations that I will never forget. Conversations that opened my eyes and taught me how to be a better person. We laughed together, and we cried together. We ran the whole spectrum of emotions together in a few short weeks. Though we've barely spoken since my homecoming and his nuptials, I will treasure that relationship just as much, if not more than any of the men I ever dated. And the reason for that can be summed up in this story:

I was very sick one night and he came to visit me even though it was late and in the middle of mid-terms. He asked me questions about myself. I can't remember what story I told him, but I remember telling him what kind of person I wanted to be. And I remember distinctly the look in his eyes. It was so familiar and not at the same time. It was love, but not the romantic kind. It was concern mixed with compassion. It was a deep look right into my soul. It wasn't the last time he'd give me that look. Simply put, he looked at me like I was worth something. I've kept a mental picture of each look he's ever given me, locked away in memory; seldom remembered, but deeply treasured.

As I sat on the couch tonight at ward prayer, it suddenly hit me: He was the last man that ever looked at me that way, like I was worth something. I watched the guys and girls in my ward pal around tonight and I felt so completely apart from it all. My heart ached for those moments when that man would look at me. All the secret side glances, the quick moments of eye contact from across rooms, the deep soul searching gazes that we used to exchange in those few short weeks we knew each other before I left were my hope on my mission. They were the hope, that I would serve the Lord with all I had to come back and find a man just as good as he was. But I sat on that couch tonight, apart from it all, craving that male companionship that used to come so easily to me. And I found that hope gone, lost in the secret smiles and side glances exchanged between friendships I'm not involved in.

I'm sure tomorrow I'll feel differently. I'll wake up with hope again. I'll rise with a renewed belief in love and gazes and sidelong glances.

But tonight, I'm going to be Miss Bates.

xoxo
-the unRomantic