This is going to be a little rambling but I hope it makes sense. I won't use names out of privacy concerns, but it's as true as I can make it.
Where I work, I've begun developing very strong feelings for a co-worker. Her shift and mine overlap for a few hours each day, and I see her when one of her duties brings her to my area of the plant (otherwise we work in separate areas). Sometimes I have to pass her area to get stuff I need to do part of my job too, but it's not an everyday thing.
She's maybe 5'3", I'm guessing 135-140#, long black hair (maybe some gray), brown eyes, glasses. Doesn't look like a Playboy Bunny, but they're there. Nice legs in shorts (now forbidden at work). Age, maybe late 20's(?), with acne blemishes on face. Married (so I'm told), at least one child (he has MD and is in a wheelchair). Husband said to treat her like garbage and spends a lot of time in bars. They live around half a block from one. She apparently drinks some too. I don't, but I say that because it might be relevant in someone's view and it saves them asking.
One of the first things that caught my eye about her is her cheerfulness. Many times smiling, laughing, joking (somewhat suggestively at times, like when she casually told a co-worker "maybe he's not happy `cause you're not playin' with his pockets!" in the break room Friday), which is a refreshing change from people griping about the hours, pay, etc. Her good work record (rarely misses). No one's ever badmouthed her I'm aware of.
This cheerfulness is a big contrast to when I saw her and (presumably) her husband (estimated at 5'10" and north of 300#) at a company picnic two years ago. She walked with her head down and wasn't smiling that I could see (told not to make eye contact with other guys there or else? I don't know.) until she got involved in a volleyball game.
A week ago today she came in minus her glasses, with a (somber? scared?) look on her face, and later worked some OT before announcing she was going to the local bar for a couple of drinks. I could see how, if what I've assumed of her home life is true, she could use it as a painkiller. We employees had an infomeeting recently at work about our employer's new drugfree workplace policy. Some discussion on signs of drug/alcohol dependency. Normally she wears specs all the time--had he broken them? Had she seen a side of him she hadn't before or was I misinterpreting her look as "scared?" Unknown.
Of all the women I've met in life, she's one of two that have affected me this way. It's a special kind of pain that won't go away. And it's getting out of control. Not just the grin on my face when she comes near my work area (how I feel about her's well known to the guys I work with, one of whom's her cousin) or now that we exchange waves at that time...but once driving past her house when I left work (hours before she did) is skating on thin ice with anti-stalking laws. She's supposed to walk to work now...and I'd know the route and times, but I won't be there.
I wish I could tell her how I felt, and that my daydreams (I hate to use the word "fantasies" because we always associate that with sex, and yes it's crossed my mind but no, that's not the first thing I think about with her) are honorable as far as intentions. That I think I could be spontaneously romantic with her--the unexpected kiss on the cheek, or the one that sets California seismographs shaking ( ), a squeeze of the hand, a hug, flowers or a special CD, little things done for her before I slept and she came home from work, that sort of thing.
The news she drinks was a shock I was a day getting over (I could drink, but it would aggravate my diabetes). But it was healthy for me to hear and assimilate it (bad pun I know, considering where we are ). I worry she could do it more.
And if he is hitting her in front of her/their son (him too?), I worry what it's doing to them. 35 years ago...it was my mother, my brother, and me getting it from her last husband, who had cases of beer on the kitchen floor. My brother's been through one marriage, two kids, one of whom he doesn't see, and has a drinking problem to some degree, and my story many of you already know.
I don't think her age is the big thing. Maybe she symbolizes a mid-life crisis for me? "The grass is always greener over there?" An unhealthy obsession? Part of this is chivalric love, that feeling of wanting to defend her from the bad guy, if that's whats going on. I doubt it's a crush, because I'm mature enough to admit she no doubt has differences on things with me (music, religion, politics, etc.) and in your typical teenage infatuation you always see them the other person as perfect. Is it what's known as an affair of the heart, or am I really in love with her as deeply as I can be considering the limited contact we have? That's like the number of men around the world who cried or felt the loss at the news Princess Diana was dead. You could love her for her beauty, or because Prince Charles is an ass (with Mrs. Camilla Parker-Bowles), her work to rid the world of land mines, or her efforts on behalf of AIDS victims, without having met or dated her. I see this as the same way. She's never done anything more than waving to encourage it in me. She's just been herself.
I've begun therapy for a number of reasons (this being one) and he had said to my list of reasons, "I don't hear a gay man talking." He mentioned the possibility of a crush at my age. On this and other issues, I'm hoping that if my thinking processes are flawed and I don't know it he'll spot it before I make mistakes on long-term decisions.
So, comments? Opinions? Advice?