magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

recently, on her site, nikki said: july is indeed the longest month of the year as i previously suspected. at the very beginning of july, a scant three weeks ago, stef and i marveled at how quickly may and june had seemed to pass. these three weeks have lasted twice as long.

waking up today, the urge to call her was once again nearly overwhelming. there's another whole week in july, and august is just as long, at least in days. and in mornings.

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er!n convinced me (for the time being) not to send this email:

From: bean
To: amy.e
Subject: don't know if you're checking email at pratt..

i've been wrestling with an urge to call you recently, mainly as an alternative to my impulse to call stephany. i could say that i want your advice, as someone who knows stef better than anyone else i'm likely to speak to. and this is true. but i know, and it's hard recognizing this subtext, that there is a part of me that while well-meaning, _wants_ to put you (or someone) in the middle of this, since i can't reach out to stef directly. if you just don't want anything to do with this, i'll understand, and i'm sorry for bothering you with it.

i do want your advice though. i suspect it would fall somewhere along the lines of 'just let go, don't let her hurt you anymore.' but i don't want to let go of her, which i'm sure you can understand. you're one of her best friends, you care about her and wouldn't want to lose her from your life. i know there's another whole set of complications that go with a romantic/sexual relationship, there's more of an emotional investment, for one (something she's always had difficulties with).

basically, it just comes down to the fact that i miss her. she was (and even in absentia, continues to be) a very large part of my life. a part that i'm having a very difficult time accepting the complete loss of.

thank you for your time. i really, honestly, don't want to upset you or make you uncomfortable with any of this. (i'm not even sure if i'm going to send it. the thought in my head though, propelling me on, is that you are her roommate, one of her closest friends. i want to continue to be a part of her life, and that inextricably overlaps with you. which actually sounds _really_ stupid, as if i'm saying 'i'm gonna have to deal with you if she remains a part of my life, so i might as well use it to my advantage.' which, although it probably _is_ a small part of my motivation, and is basically what stef said to me in a letter while i was in rome, is not at all what i mean to say and not what she meant either. for better or for worse our lives are intertwined at the point of stef. i'd like to take that as a blessing. i'd like to turn to you as a friend. that's what i mean.)

thanks,
stupidbean

also, based on my telling her that i don't know how stef would respond to my trying to contact her now, how sometimes she seemed to ask me to push more and sometimes it just pissed her off, er!n told me, 'she sounds so much like me. or at least the part of me that erin has to deal with. whatever he does i want the other thing. i've set it up so that he just can't win. ... it took me forever to realize that i was doing this. three, three and a half years? it took him completely blowing up at me, saying the meanest things. and he had been saying them all along, but i wouldn't listen, they were always his fault. ... but he's like you, in that he completely loves me and has stood by me through all of this.'

er!n also said, 'what if you sent her a huge bouquet of flowers at work?'

'i don't know how she would react to that. she might just get pissed off.'

'even if she did, what would it matter now? you can't do anything and hope to get something in return. but i was thinking, what would i want if i was in her situation? and i have been. and i wouldn't want someone to try to force things back together, but to know that they're thinking about me, and they care about me. i'm very tempted to suggest that you send her a big bouquet of flowers at work.'

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and tonight, watching the mole on tv, reading françoise sagan's bonjour tristesse. i was partly in the show, partly in the book. back in italy. texas maybe. my life at risd was just.. gone.

this afternoon i felt as if i really should have looked for an architecture internship this summer. it's not just the lack of a real job that's been getting to me, but the lack of direction. and it all comes back to my motivation problems. i just don't know what to do with myself. i feel useless.

and the break-up with stef, not being able to do anything about it. i feel small, and helpless.

and so i've been drowning myself in tv and books, and in a way i'm sort of losing sight of everything that i've found in the last few years of my life. maybe i just need to take a break from all of that though. in order to find the sense of magic that has somehow been replaced over the same period of time (more or less) with a jaded cynicism. maybe with magic back in my life there will be more meaning in my architectural work. more meaning in my personal relationships. how do i find that magic? that's one of the big questions.