I caught cold today.
I’ve been trying to balance between surviving in law school and realizing that I may drop out after a year. I don’t want to commit myself and my time to the point of stressing, nor do I want to be lax about it and depend on dropping out.
It’s tough all over; it’s always tough. The only time things are guaranteed to be secure and comfortable in my life is when they’re in my past. Even this tumultuous past Summer seems a place of relative comfort now.
But what else would I be doing? Wouldn’t things be just as rough and miserable? Law school isn’t the worst possible situation I could be in. Maybe not for the entire three year grind, but one year should be survivable. I look around this apartment and I wonder if I will look back on it with the same feeling I look back on other places I’ve lived - as places of relative comfort. Which makes it feel like I’m in progressively worse living situations, which can’t be true.
Shiho has been in Chicago this past week visiting relatives, and we’ve talked on the phone. Our relationship has always been one of wanting. Our interactions have been windows opened and closed. I could love her like I love Amina, but I don’t. I love Shiho just because she has become an important part of my life. Not a pervasive one. I had a chance to say, “I love you” at the end of our first conversation. But I didn’t and I’m glad I didn’t. It didn’t seem right. She noticed it. But it felt like she took it as a new norm, not as an indication of something being amiss.
Amina and I are comfortably each other’s. Although religion plays a growing part of my reality and being. I don’t know if Amina is. Maybe she is, maybe she’s a component of religion, a metaphor.
I’ve started writing songs again. I have music for three songs, but I haven’t tried lyrics yet. I’ve been scared to try. Maybe they’ll come naturally like the music did. For months it was impossible to come up with any music, but then I started putting snippets down on tape, and then I was able to stretch those snippets into minutes. Lines for lyrics have started to come to me sporadically. Maybe I’ll be able to take those lines and stretch them out into lyrics.
