the gold standard

i had a huge crush on someone at work.  he was perfect in every way: handsome, brilliant, kind, european, doctor.  the kind of man every woman wants to be with and every man wants to be.

we shall call him Nutella.

i noticed Nutella for the first time about 2 years ago.  he wasn't an easy fellow to miss.  when he entered a room, a quiet hush followed and you could almost taste the pheromones exuding from him like so many dull pinpricks on the nape of your neck. i was married at the time, so of course i merely looked, admired, and went my way. but every day i would see him in the cafeteria, and every day i would look.

when Judas departed, Nutella was my only succor. my looks turned into stares. and one day, my Brothers and Sisters, i can tell you with complete honesty that Nutella began staring back.  every lunch became a ballet of sorts: where to sit to get the best view without being detected, how to look detached but still interested, exactly what time to arrive on a specific workday in order to be the one to see and not be seen.

we thought we were clever. we thought we were anonymous.  but as it turns out, we were blatant in our observation of one another.  neither of us ate alone; we each had teams of associates to dine with. and it became a running joke at each table that Nutella and i faltered in our speech or fork-eye-mouth coordination every time the other entered the room. ours was a chaste and mute love affair, but it was an affair of sorts nonetheless and we reveled in it.

as time went by, my associates complained that i was too timid to approach Nutella. "seize the day!" they insisted. but i simply couldn't bring myself to do it. at first it was because i was too shy at the thought of approaching a handsome man as a single woman. and to be perfectly frank, i held Nutella on a pedestal and therefore imagined myself unworthy of his singular attention. then the pedestal grew to a mountainous height, one i could no longer attempt to scale; therefore Nutella became lost to me. and for what it's worth to my ego, he seemed to be locked in a similar struggle.

a few months ago i found out Nutella was leaving for home. his work at my place of employ had come to an end, and he decided that America no longer held sway over him.  i tried in vain to overcome my shyness, to approach Nutella and invite him out for coffee, or a drink... "for as long as we both shall live" as Tom Hanks said to Meg Ryan.  we crossed paths outside of the cafeteria a few times, but one of us was always accompanied by others -- he was a lead person in his laboratory, i am a lead person running my facility, and rarely could you find one or the other without at least one person tagging along.  it was infinitely frustrating, but i gave myself over to the Powers That Be and held true to the notion that if we were meant to be anything other than mutual-but-distant admirers then it would happen.

it didn't.

to my credit i did finally speak to him. it was a comical interaction which should have been filmed for posterity's sake, but only Nutella and I know what passed between us.  in two years, it was the only time we were alone together. it lasted only for a few moments, but it was a lifetime's worth.

then... he was gone.

so the question remained: what was the purpose? everything in this universe has its place and time, a lesson to be learned so that one can grow and Become.  what was Nutella's lesson; what could i possibly take away from his fleeting presence in my life?

it wasn't until the end of january that i figured it out.

The Gold Standard.

Nutella represented all that which i craved, but none which i allowed myself to consume. he was everything i wanted in a man but never dreamed i should possess.  so i asked myself the question: why? then another: why not?  i did some soul-searching and got my answers (none of which i am explaining here, Dear Reader), and then it occurred to me that This Is A Do-Over.  my life. my quest for the grail... i have a second shot here.  and Nutella was the one who walked me to the starting gate. he was the Ungettable Get, the Gold Standard, to be certain, but that didn't mean every man had to be.

so i did the bold thing. i've put myself out there again. and i have pretty high standards this time, folks. i am going to find another Nutella, dammit, but this one i'm going to consume all by myself. mmmmm....

"I blow you a kiss It should reach you tomorrow As it flies from the other side of the world
From my room in my fugitive motel Somewhere in the dust bowl It flies from the other side of the world" ~Elbow