magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

I had been planning on going home over Labor Day weekend, and then making a trip up to Easthampton to finally retrieve my belongings from Stef. She had given this plan a provisional okay, although had left open what seemed like a small possibility that she might be going camping. I ignored that small possibility, and for the last week or so have been preparing myself emotionally to deal with the situation. This morning there was email from her saying, 'Sorry, I am going camping, Labor Day weekend is not going to work.'

Having built up the nerve to tackle this, I rushed into trying to figure out if I could do it this weekend. Called George to ask if he might be able to take next Monday off to help me move the stuff into the city. Called my mom to ask about being picked up at the MetroNorth station on Saturday. Wrote back to Stef.

A few hours later, there was a response that no, this weekend was no good either. I was deflated. And I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but her email mentioned Amy and Jeremy, who started dating while Stef and I were in the midst of some of our best time together, when Amy and Stef were roommates, and the four of us hung out together a bunch, drinking, playing cards, watching movies, we even all went to Maine over spring break together, and then in the next paragraph Matt, whom she's been living with for the last year or so, as if to say look how well Amy and Jeremy did, and things are going great for me now, it's too bad that you obviously can't make a relationship work. And I know that's not what she was saying, but it's what my mind made from it, and there is some truth in it, and I responded with an email saying, 'Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.'

And immediately regretted sending it. One's first impulse is not always the best thing to say. It's often not the best thing to say. For anyone who has ever been impatient with the fact that I tend to think about things for a long time, and find the right words before speaking, do you really think you'd necessarily want to hear the first thing that popped into my head? And sometimes I even think meaner and nastier things, and I'm really glad that for the most part they never make it out of my mouth.

So I wrote another email back, apologizing. 'I'm still harbouring a lot of animosity,' I said, 'but that was pretty much uncalled for. What about the weekend after Labor Day?'