Fort Lee, NJ

I’ve been stupid enough to let my defenses down. The ‘rents are very predictably taking advantage of it. I give them an inch and they blitz for every bit of ground they can get. It’s like a war. They get a foothold and secure a position, then attack again, advance and secure another position, taking advantage of any weakness shown.

The tension is all here, but I have been trying to be polite and cordial, reducing the friction. It’s only an experiment, a front and I feel the lying in my face, but it reduces negative interaction, which is good because I don’t need it. But without the coldness I usually present, they seem to feel free to push for more, gain leverage in controlling my life.

It isn’t all bad. They make me care about my “self” less. If I can care about my self less, maybe I can stop putting so much emphasis on it. The first step in really developing is to stop caring about myself and what happens to me.

For me to graduate in December, I would need to take 17 credits this Fall. I just barely got by this past semester with 14. I could do 17 credits if I could convince myself to not care about grades at all, let my GPA plunge and simply not care about it.

College is a privilege. My being there is made possible by the ‘rents and their money. It would be an abuse of privilege if I started demanding how I go about getting educated. If the ‘rents decide that grades don’t matter, then grades don’t matter. Anything about money, I can’t fight it.

Fort Lee, NJ

I did something I shouldn’t have. I went through everything that Shiho ever sent to me. It took over three hours and it was very painful. I had nightmares afterwards, the guilt was so overwhelming. What I’ve put her through was an injustice. She did try, she wanted so much from me that I know I was able to give. She took in so much of what I wanted her to. She deserved so much more than I gave and in the end she was an innocent victim of all my personal difficulties. There’s a good reason why she’s so far away now and how I do deserve it.

Back in high school years, Shiho and I decided to go out with each other a few weeks right before she left for Japan. It wasn’t enough time to make much of an impression and when my mental stability declined after she left, she got more and more overshadowed. By the time I got sent to the hospitals after my first semester in college, I was totally numb. The letters she sent from six months preceding my admission into the hospitals are filled with subtle pain that I totally missed.

The hospitals started in February 1988 - the same month Shiho managed to return to the States for a visit, a year and half after she left. She actually visited me with Liz when I was in the second hospital and I think she was quite shocked at what was going on. Immediately after that, I don’t think she knew how to approach me. I don’t think she was even able to ask if I was alright because she might have been scared of my reaction. We considered ourselves broken-up soon after that. Nothing said, it just happened.

For another year I was numb and minimally functional. A year after that, March-April 1989, corresponding to my move into Third World House, I started getting better, developing a positive outlook with death as its ironic base. Shiho and I had kept in touch writing occasionally, but I guess by then we had pushed each other into the margins of each other’s lives that we were already on a pen pal type letter basis. We’d gone our different directions.

She got hurt, she was a victim of my self-destruction. It’s a self-destruction that isn’t designed to succeed and this time, the cost has been Shiho’s trust; a very high cost. I guess I shouldn’t see the tragedy of Shiho in tragic proportions, though. It’s all abstract, theoretical and emotional.

I imagine one day we’ll be sitting in a coffeeshop in Japan, sipping at $7 coffees and talking about the too many years we’ve missed. I’d look her straight in the eye and recollect this weekend to her and tell her how sorry I was. She wouldn’t give any indication that it meant anything to her and she’d tell me to forget it, there’s no need, perhaps because that’s exactly what I’d tell her if the roles were switched. The coffee would be my treat.

Fort Lee, NJ

Shiho sent me a letter that took a while to get to me since it had to be forwarded from Oberlin. I don’t know what the deal is anymore. We’ve become pen pals and that is disillusioning and frustrating. It doesn’t do the love between us any justice. I did love her. Maybe not with the romantic intensity that I have for Amina, but I thought Shiho would be a reliable, substantive emotional mainstay in my life. Now she’s just a pen pal.

Time to shelve the memories? I’d rather totally cut communication than to have our relationship downgraded to being pen pals. It feels like there’s no more heart. I told her all this and I have no idea how she’ll react, but I hope she tells me something to maintain the substance of what made things special between us.

Maybe there’s not supposed to be any emotions here. If I remember correctly, that’s one of the reasons I couldn’t love Shiho romantically. She was always so ambiguous when it came to expressing her emotions, almost deadpan. I felt that she was always following what I wanted. I didn’t like her not asserting what she wanted or what she felt. It always felt like I was in control and that I could call all the shots. Things get boring like that. All my relationships are being sent floating in ultimate impermanence.

I’ve known Shiho longer than anyone else I know. But she’s like a ghost. All our mutual friends have gone into oblivion or complacency, whichever was shorter for each, I’m sure. All those times are gone, but Shiho is still present hiding somewhere along the margins. A lot of love has been able to remain intact, perhaps due to the distance and its slow growth. I’d rather preserve the love laid to rest than to let it rot in the open air, constantly being subject to being pushed aside by the likes of Amina and Frances who are part of my now, and sad to say, more important to it.

Frances and Amina, please let them stay in my life and close to my heart. Please don’t let Frances get scared away by the way she can be hurt by me. Please don’t let Amina stop pouring love in my direction for fear that I might get tethered to a love for her, for fear that she’s feeding something she doesn’t want to. But things change. They always do.

Fort Lee, NJ

Summer school began at the beginning of the month. I stay in the apartment above the ‘rent’s office and commute to the Village three times a week. There’s nothing special about the class, “Sociology of the Family”, a Women’s Studies course. It’s not difficult, not ground-breaking stuff, but it offers useful information and fresh perspectives in a non-challenging fashion.

It has so far been a well-balanced, serene type of Summer. Almost numbing. The tone of the Summer has been set by my own thoughts and feelings, which I keep to myself. When just left to thought, it gets a bit serious and somber, but also serene.

I go running frequently, and I have my stereo and my computer and it’s Summer. I have no complaints about this, it’s easy living. Occasionally I get together with Liz or Myung, who is in New Jersey for the Summer to spend some time with his newly discovered mother.

I like going into New York three days a week. I enjoy the mindless hour commute and deadpan faces staring into oblivion. I like playing the part of a consumer on a regular basis, getting my poppy seed bagel with cream cheese and coffee, cream no sugar, before every class. I love being nocturnal again.

I love the feel and the smell of Summer nights. There’s something mysterious and vast about them. It’s as if they’re stirring something in my memory. I can’t tell what. They remind me of some other place, a different time and different place, but I have no idea when or where. Something about the breezes, cool and silent. There’s something yearning and inviting in the Summer night sky. Something about Summer nights make me feel that this world is very much a part of the entire cosmos. And a certain flavor is given to the feeling when you’re missing someone far, far away.

My feelings towards Amina have warmed to a comfortable understanding. Whatever gets assumed from now will be what is already known. I’m not going to push anything. I know I love her and probably always will and I’m just glad that she is permanently in my life. What I’ve felt for her is real and always has been and now we know our relationship to each other and our limitations. It doesn’t change how I feel, but at least I know.

It was brave of her to use the words “I love you”, but then turn around and say “yes I do, but I’m committed, I’m sorry”. It seems she has always been honest and sincere and I greatly appreciate that.

I can’t say she did anything wrong. She didn’t lead me along, she didn’t deceive me. She gave me credit. She made a mistake but she could have waffled over it for fear of my reaction and that would have been worse. Instead, she stayed straight on the line and didn’t play any games. I should learn that, it might help me handle something in the future.

I’m trying to develop a new attitude towards the ‘rent’s. I need to be more tactful in getting what I want with the least losses and the least risks. The hate here is just not worth the energy. I do owe them. Regardless of the sluggish economy of emotions, they have financially sacrificed and invested. As for the return on the investment, I have no idea at this point.