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.
