#singlemess

scene 1

exposition: a bunch of us are on the church bus riding up to the orchard. one of our goals, besides having fun, is to pick up apple orders from seniors at our church. church guy (whom I will abbreviate to C for this post) is the bus driver.

one of the two group leaders with us says that picking up the orders will actually happen at a different, less touristy orchard a little ways away, while most of the group is enjoying the touristy one. he asks for volunteers to go with him, his young son, and C (as driver). purely because C is involved, I raise my hand.

i am the only one.

scene 2

we go. we pick up the apples. I end up being fairly extraneous as the two men do all the lifting from trolley to the back of the bus. not sure why volunteers were asked for. (but it was a Christian-run family business and I bought some caramel pecan apple butter that sounds amazing so. great time.) on the way both to and from the little orchard our seating arrangement is so:

🛞 👶🧔‍♂️[aisle] _ _ _ _ [aisle] 👩_

so the leader was taking turns talking to C at the wheel and then to me. he asks where I live, what I do for work, if I see myself staying here/at that job for the long term, all the basic talk you might expect as we don't interact a ton. And then, the final question he asks C on the way back is about his dating life. Which, C gracefully takes the "too personal" out the leader offers, no biggy. So the leader then spends the next ten minutes or so talking about his own dating life before he finally met his wife and got married (she was about my age at that time, sounds like), avowing the importance of guys getting out there and at least giving it a try, "God can't move a parked car" etc., till we were just about back at the touristy orchard 😂😂😂

then we all went up to an observation tower and took in some nice scenery and he and I exchanged maybe one line of joking conversation and all went our separate ways for the next little while till it was time to load up everyone and head back to church.

and when leaving the bus for the final time, i thanked C by name, and he responded, so I knew I'd been audible enough.

end scene.

so y'all remember we were training the twin cannons of prayer and feigned boredom on that crush I had on church guy, right? and then I was assisted by the unexpected ambush of pneumonia that kept me livestreaming only for nearly the entire month of June and out of choir for a few weeks after that.

and I was doing okay! It was like the crush had, if not given up the ghost, at least taken a hearty dose of anesthesia or laudanum and was sleeping quietly in the bottom of my insides somewhere. The dream cameos stopped entirely, and I still clocked the guy as attractive but felt only the normal amount of attractive-guy-nerves without as much aggravation as formerly. I was, let me repeat, doing okay. Fine, even. Dandy, one might dare to say!

then I wake up this morning from a dream where he not only showed up at some sort of choir concert I went to see, but sat next to me and so forth. Annoying, after so much progress, but I could handle that. I go to Sunday school, go to the restroom, cut through the auditorium on my way to choir and drop my purse and notebook at the end of a pew in my normal section to reserve a seat for when the choir rejoins the congregation before the sermon. Note, this is not the same section church guy and his sister sit in--they favor farther forward, say that three times fast.

I go to choir, we rehearse, we file upstairs into the choir loft, the service goes on apace. The choir files off and behind the platform during the final congregational hymn. I backslide a little bit and do try to see if the timing is such that he might be holding open a door into the auditorium, but no, he and his sister have already entered by the time I'm in sight of the door. As I sit in the back row of the choir, I'm one of the last ones in. I sing with the rest of the congregation as I walk quickly toward the pews, scanning for the end-seat where my purse is. Aha, there it is, and there are people in the row next to it.

Some very familiar people.

Church guy, in fact.

Between the dream cameo last night, the choir having just sung "Be Still, My Soul," and the soloist beginning to sing a song with the theme "My God Is Good" as I settle in for an entire sermon sitting next to the man I had a very bad crush on for over a year, I am made fully aware that God is either testing me or making me fully aware of His divine sense of humor.

Probably both.

so all that to say, i had been toying with the idea of going on a hike with the college and career sunday school class this weekend that the church guy/his sister have signed up to attend, but I would have to get up before 7 a.m. on a Saturday, plus if I'm only going in order to give myself another opportunity to fail to interact with this one guy whom basically everything is conspiring against my connecting with--even just to find out whether I have anything in common with him--and has been ever after that one fortuitous croquet game, it's feeling more and more like I don't need to.