magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

[ email, posted in retrospect, early january. the sentiment has been reproduced more succinctly in the next few entries, this is the raw emotion. (see part three at the end of the entry on the 24th.) ]

Date: mon, 715pm
From: bean
To: stef
Subject: one

i had no idea that things had gotten this bad. i'm still completely in shock. i still believe in my heart that we are meant to be together. you've told me that so many times. i can't begin to understand what's in your head, but there must be other factors, whether it's hormones or the shortening days or stress about money or whatever. i know that some of these things are what's caused me to loose my temper more quickly than in the past. they aren't reasons to end a life that we've spent a year working on together. look deep inside yourself. i know that you've been happy to be with me. that there is still that spark. in your sleep, in memphis, you did that because you really do love me, you really do want to be with me. we've spent almost every night together for at least the past six months, and most of our nights before that. your body expects mine to be there, just i expect you to. if i have a hard time falling asleep when you are out late, this is why. as far as compromising your desired lifestyle for me, you know that i'm going to love you even if you shop at walmart, even if you eat fast food. i won't go to these places with you, but i'm not going to stop loving you because we have different views. we've got a lot of differences, but none of them are worth throwing us away over. every couple has differences. every couple has irreconcilable differences. things that they will never see eye to eye on, no matter how long they are together. i want you to listen to a segment from an npr program. ignore the fact that they are talking about married couples if you have to. the fear of commitment does seem to be a big factor in all of this. so much so that you're even second guessing a lot of the feelings you've had over the past three years. think about the poem that you wrote on our bench on my birthday. just think about the best times. question why exactly it is that you've come to this conclusion now, in what seems to me to be completely out of the blue. i know you say you've been unhappy for the last month and a half. why? what are the things that made you unhappy? could it be a hormonal response because of going off birth control or because of sunlight? don't take that out on us. i know that i can be a difficult person to be in a relationship with. i know it can take a lot of effort sometimes. if that effort wasn't worth it, would we keep coming back together? if there are things that i am doing that are directly making you unhappy, i will do everything in my power to fix it. i won't change who i am, and this might be part of what worries you, but i will change the things about myself that even i don't like. i hadn't told you, but i had made a new years resolution, before we left austin, really when i realized that this "job" at built records was only going to be intermittent contract work, that i was going to get a real job in january when we got back. whatever it took. i would go and apply at whole foods. at half-priced books. at target if i had to. i spent quite a bit of the drive up here, while you were sleeping, thinking about how i could revamp my resume. send it out to every firm in town, whether it seemed like they were hiring or not. just before we left collin told me at the austin film commission hotline, where they list all the film jobs that are currently available in town. maybe i could work painting sets or whatever. i made this new years resolution because i know i need to find something to do with my time. that i need to help actively provide for us as a couple. that i need to get out of the house. to meet people. i know that all of this is making me unhappy. it's making you unhappy. my unhappiness is making you unhappy. i don't want to do that. when we go out to eat and you ask me if i'll be grossed out if you eat meat, of course i'll say yes. i'm a moral vegan. but honestly, people eat meat all around me every day. there's no way i could get morally outraged at it all the time. do i wish you were a vegetarian? yes. do i accept the fact that you are not? probably more than you realize. i don't want you to feel like i'm constantly judging you, that you are not living up to my standards, to be constantly worrying about it, worrying about me, about offending me, about hurting me. it means so much to me that you have been conscious about a lot of this stuff over the years, but you shouldn't compromise yourself because of it. i love you. i've always loved you. and that's all of you. even the parts of you that i can't stand i still love. and i am attracted to your body. i feel like i somehow really put my foot in my mouth during that conversation. to say that your body wasn't the first thing that attracted you to me was true. but you do turn me on. i'm always telling you which outfits make your ass look cute. i'm not so much of a visual breast man. but you've got beautiful breasts. you know that. you know i feel that way. why else would i always want to be touching them? even though i know it's not something that's necessarily going to turn you on. and you've got a beautiful face. i also know that you don't really believe that. i don't know why. i don't know if people were just horrible to you when you were growing up and told you that you had a great body and an ugly face, or if it's simply that your face is not that sort of face that attracts you to other women. i know that a lot of your self-esteem is wrapped up in your body image, and your face is something that needs makeup to be presentable. you know that story of the first time that i really realized i was attracted to you. when you had been sick for a week and came into the beb one day and my first thought was: wow, she's radiant today, she must be feeling better. but before i had a chance to say anything natasza said: no time to put on makeup this morning? and you said: no, i'm still sick, i slept late and just rolled out of bed and came into studio. my first thought, literally, was that you were radiant. without your makeup. makeup or not you are so beautiful to me. but there's also the story about my first ever impression of you: i bet that she would be fun to have sex with. i don't believe that i've ever thought that about another human being. i told you the other night that i don't really notice people's bodies. every once in a while i do, but it's inconsistent and i see it as an anomaly. but i totally noticed yours, it was my first ever impression of you. your body and the way you carried yourself. i didn't know anything about your personality at that point. i didn't know any of the rumors. i'm not even sure i knew your name. there's another website that i want you to go to and read, a story. i know that you could read the end of it and use it to justify your position, but you have to read the line at the end of the third from last paragraph again. and the title. i was reading this in the hall of the beb one day in october of 2002. all the way down at the bench by the window. or it may have been early in november. it was either right after we began speaking again, or right after we spent that night together after the artists' ball but before we had made any sort of commitment back to eachother. i was reading it in the hall and i was crying and you came walking down the hall and sat with me for a few minutes. maybe you put your head on my shoulder. i don't think you knew that i was crying. the story was originally published on the mcsweeneys site a few days after you broke up with me. it was the same day that i listened to the npr story. i don't know if i read it then, or for the first time in the hall. and speaking of that day in july. two weeks ago when we were talking about this, you told me that it was that breakup that hurt the most. when you told me you didn't love me anymore. it wasn't because i slammed the door and scared you. it was because you had lost faith in us. as you've done again. but that faith keeps being rekindled. it's not us. it's not that we don't work together. i don't know why you go through these cycles of loosing faith, but it's just temporary. maybe you don't want to be with me today. but you will. we'll go back to austin and i'll get a job and you'll live your life and i'll live my life and we'll live our life. the life that we've bought furniture for. the life that we both put our names on a lease for. the life that we went to the aspca and adopted flora for. i know you're afraid. i know you're tired. but i know that you do love me. some of my happiest moments together were sitting in xo and talking about how we were stuck with eachother. whether it's fate or whether it's dumb luck, we are meant to be together. my hands are going numb typing this. i just set out to write a short letter. something sweet that would make that spark in you glow. but i can't stop. you are so important to me. and i think that i have to be as important to you, even if for some reason you are repressing that. i think about sitting at bouldin creek coffee house that first time. playing othello all afternoon. i think about playing pool at the gingerman. sitting with you at the bar at the gingerman. i don't want to give these things up. i looked back over the last couple of months for things that made my heart skip a beat: "little stephany" in my pocket on halloween. being on the tv news together as the stupid couple jaywalking across congress. napping with you, last week i think, curled up in our clothes on our bed in the fading sunlight. i don't want to give these things up. they mean too much to me. i don't know what we can do to work on your fear of commitment. but we can work on my unhappiness (bread mostly out of boredom and a failure to directly contribute, the money from my salisbury account not withstanding). we can work on our communication problems. i can try to take a deep breath and count to ten or something when i feel that i'm loosing my temper. i remember when you told me how much it hurt you for me to say "fuck you". i made a real conscious effort to avoid doing it. i know i've done it a few times recently, and i'm sorry. i'm so sorry. we've both worked so hard at the relationship. we can't throw it away. i want to say you'll regret it. maybe you will. maybe you won't. but if we try, i know we can make it work, and i know that you will be happy. i know that you will realize the things that do make you love me. please don't let it just end like this. please.

Date: mon, 716p
From: bean
To: stef
Subject: two

writing all that has made me feel better. i was able to fall asleep last night by thinking of this as only five days apart. i woke up hurting this morning though, and did my best to stay in bed as long as i could. when i finally got up i expected to find flora jumping up on my legs and meowing at my head. i've been mood-swing-y all day. when i find something to keep myself occupied for half an hour (reading an article in the nytimes about kucinich, uploading pix to magicbeans) i'm okay. when i finished doing that i feel adrift, listless, sad. i pace and cry a little. writing all of that made me feel better because it made me feel like it's not impossible that things will work out. and i lost most of the feeling in my hands because i was typing and stressed and all the blood was rushing to my heart. yes that's cheesy. i've really got to eat something. i haven't eaten since those fig newmans in the car. i haven't really felt like it, but i know that i need to. i'm sure i'll write more later. i don't think i'm going to stop.