AUTO LOG WARNING: This is a long post.

Well, jo asked for me to tell the SCG/Athena story, and I shall. This will be the first written record of the comprehensive event, though not the first record given. Funny how I’ll tell this story because someone I’ve never met asked.
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The end with SCG started with a precipitous drop on August 30 when she came up to OC for a wedding of one of my friends. We had attended weddings together before, but this was the first one which I had asked her to come to. Though she got along well with most of my friends, through the course of the evening, she had mentioned that she was seeing someone, despite the fact that the relationship really wasn’t going anywhere. I took that as confirmation that things probably wouldn’t progress beyond friendship with us, despite what I felt. Skip forward a few months to the day before Thanksgiving, she calls me up and says she’s in my area and meeting with friends and where she will be. For some reason, I didn’t really feel the desire to meet up with her and have my emotions jerked about for no reason, not that she’s ever done it on purpose, it just happens to me myself. My official reason was that I had other commitments to deal with, which I did, and that time was too short for me to get out to where she was. Given the time, it was about an hour’s drive in traffic (20-30 minutes without) and I had things to do in an hour and a half to two hours. Deep down, I was more feeling the fact that I knew she didn’t hold to friendships in the same way as I did. She tends to cycle through friends, like a lizard sheds skin, old ones fall out, new ones come in. I was fortunate that I managed to keep in contact with her for several years, but to me, friendship requires loyalty and the willingness to do anything for them. Sure, I’m willing to play mindgames with my friends, but I’ll back them up when they need me. And that was the last time I’ve had contact with her. I don’t know if cutting off all contact was necessary, but at least for the next few months, I needed to isolate myself and my emotions from her. Maybe in a few months, I’ll resume contact with her.

The thing with Athena began slowly, but there was a moment where I said to myself that I did have a crush on her. She was my secret crush for a very long time, so secret that I didn’t even acknowledge it myself. I’ve known Athena since middle school, and we attended the same high school. We go to the same church, too. I’m graduated HS a year ahead of her, but she is 4 weeks older than I am. Shortly after I moved back home from SD, and she returned from UCLA, we both found ourselves volunteering with the youth groups with which we had been a part of in middle school. I worked with the boys, and she worked with the girls. Two years later, the ones who had led the respective groups stepped down, and we stepped in to fill their place. Independently, though one may call it serendipitous or whatever. I don’t care. So here we are, two 24 year-olds, with 2 years of working with kids, stepping in to guide the spiritual growth of 4th-8th graders, and we both have no clue what to do except to seek the advice of the ones who stood in our place when we were kids. There was an event where all the leaders at our church were supposed to get together and pray and stuff, and all the Sunday School teachers were invited. However, for the “Children’s Department” there were only two who showed. Me and her. That was mid August, probably right before the wedding that I attended with SCG. I think by that time, Athena was on the rise, and SCG was on the decline, though I hadn’t realized it by then. During that meeting, we shared with each other that neither of us really felt qualified to be doing what we were doing. I think that helped me put her into the proper perspective. See, growing up, she had the image and reputation of almost a Bible-thumper, and thus, any male that would dare to ask her out would have to be the same. I don’t consider myself a Bible-thumper. Sure I attended church my whole life, and I do a bunch of work for them (not just with the kids, but also with sound systems, computers, etc...) but I consider myself as one who walks the line a little more often than he should. One whose big problems involve not swearing in front of kids (a nasty habit I picked up in college), instead of more spiritual problems. That isn’t to say I haven’t “graduated” to those problems myself; I have, but I still want to swear at the kids. I guess that little encounter made me see her as less up there. In my recent discussions with my peers, people I grew up with, who are now the high school counselors, I’ve taken solace in the fact that we all have our problems, and that we can discuss them with each other and help each other out.

Going back to the time line, I guess after I blew off SCG, Athena gained prominence, and I guess I started to acknowledge to myself that I did have a crush on her. The “definitive moment” would be December 30/31 when I acknowledged to myself that I did like her, whilst we were at our church’s winter retreat, where we both served as additional high school counselors for the cabins. Why I considered her my “secret crush” is that I just don’t think I’m that good of a person for someone like her. One could say that she’s probably out of my league. She’s pretty too, as some have noted that she looks a little like Grace Park in Battlestar Galactica. Which is why I chose to call her Athena, and the fact that she’s probably a wiser person than I am.

As mentioned previously, I had a discussion with a friend of mine, who just happened to start going out with Athena’s youngest sister about the whole issue. It was more of a quid pro quo thing with him. I was one of the first people he told that he was dating Athena’s sister (the “official Facebook announcement” came a few weeks later) and I had a dream where he and Athena were starting a thing. It was interesting because my dream had gotten close, within the family. Thus because I had related the dream to him when he gave me the news, I decided to tell him that I had feelings for his girlfriend’s oldest sister when he asked about the dream. We decided to meet up two weeks later to have a nice long chat about the whole thing, which is the aforementioned discussion. He felt that Athena was within range of one like me, and he spoke of various things that would put me in consideration, as in consideration for a possible future spouse. The people at my church are like that once they reach past college age.

There are certain difficulties involved in this situation. I simply can’t go announcing to her that I like her, as it might give rise to much awkwardness, especially when we have contact not only in regards to our kids (who meet separately, but we communicate) and also in regards to the worship teams. She plays bass guitar and I work the sound board, and I’m usually there when the teams practice, and I attend their meetings to plan and stuff. So in the interest of others, I don’t want to throw her off her game, especially when it involves kids. There will eventually come a point in which I can go and ask her out and stuff, but it is far in coming, and I need to be patient. However, this leads me to being paranoid, which I hate, and it screws with me so much. It also doesn’t help that I’ve recently started to carry a knife in my pocket as a utility tool, which does come in handy.

In regards to the knife, I cut myself with it on Sunday through a little bit of bad knife placement when cutting and not listening to my own advice. Other knife carrying friends at church say that a knife really isn’t yours until it draws blood, usually the one who owns it. So, my knife has tasted my blood and is now bonded to me, and in response, I gave it a name: Sharon. I also have a second knife on order in the mail, one that is of similar design to this one. I plan to also name that one Sharon. Collectively, they will be the “Valerii” as in “Sharon Valerii.” Boomer and Athena. Yeah, I’m slowly going crazy about this whole thing, not that SCG events didn’t drive me crazy, but I didn’t go naming knives after related things.
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