2000-07-04 - 18:30:35

Me and Larissa decided to stay - we're not going west until January. The reason is that I am applying for a promotion here at work, a supervisor position that i think I can get. And if I get it, then that means alot more money for me - enough to really save up before I leave - enough that I could afford to fly to a distant land or set myself up in Boulder and not work for a couple of months. Enough. And Larissa has fallen in love with Jim - Hard. She couldn't bear to leave so soon - but she and I can't bear to live apart yet - So we made a decision together to stay until January.

So I'm here and that means I'm putting off my dream for money, which makes me feel like I'm wasting my life - but on the other hand its for the greater good in the long run because then when I leave I can really go whereever I want -wow.

Larissa is driving down this weekend to break the news to Ryan - because allthough we are still definitely going to california, she is in love with Jim, and only Jim, and that's going to be hard for Ryan to bear.

Last night we went to the clairmont lounge (Blondie taught me how to crush beer cans with my breasts!) When we got home Larissa got sad, because she realized it was not going to work out with her and Ryan, because she realized she had never been in love with Ryan the way she is with Jim, because she was sad at the loss of Ryan because she realized she was never going to be with him like this because it just wasn't in her -

And I had left the room but I got sad, I heard her telling Jim about me, praising me, she said something to the effect of:"Hillary has gained the strongest self-love because everyone who loved her has denied her" It is strange to hear yourself talked about because i never think of myself as having so much self-love, I was the one before all of this, before last fall who had the least self-love, who was the neediest and the most passive - And now i guess Larissa's right, and it made me feel good that she recognized that about me even though it really struck a sad sad chord in me to realize the part about being denied was also very very true.

Larissa asked me if I thought she was doing the right thing, she cares so much about everyone she wants to do what's best for herself but also what's best for Jim and Ryan - And I told her that I knew the love between her and Jim was true love, that I could see it plainly, that I thought Ryan was going to grow stronger - because this time Ryan won't have me to stir things up and this time Larissa is really makeing a choice - She said she ran after Ryan so hard because she was the most scared of losing him, because she needs him in her life so badly, (and because Asshole Jim was around, Sensitive Jim must have been vacationing in Canada then) but it is clear to me that she and Jim are so in love beyond all love, the way Jim and I felt for each other so long ago. I am going to write Ryan a letter to comfort him - my role in all of this is of confidant and friend and I have no desires to be more than that.

Larissa and I were in the pool the other day, talking about how we'd changed - she told me she thought I had finally become all the things I used to say that I was, but really wasn't. Like I used to say I was generous, unselfish - but I realize I wasn't genuinely that way, I was concious of how my actions would be viewed by others and acted so that people would think I was those things, but that's not the same as being them. The things she mentioned I used to say I was but truly am now were so poetic, Canada, warrior, etc etc. I love Larissa.