1844 7th Ave., Oakland

The key thing for Amina and me is to be honest and spontaneous. It’s funny how that means something so different now than it meant several months ago. Several months ago it was an expression of optimism, to see how we could explore and build this relationship. Now being honest and spontaneous means we have no direction, no idea where we’re going, and that we’re looking for the landmines so that we know where they are. The character and color of our relationship has completely changed. Or so it feels. I can’t approach any aspect of our relationship without ending on a negative note.

She says to wait and see how it is when we’re together and see if it works then. I’d be totally fine with that, but my reservations are in my doubts that we’ll even make it that far. So I’m not so hot on this idea. It may work. If we can’t make it work while we’re apart, how strong really is it?

She has already implemented this wait and see strategy and she has left our problems behind her without telling me. The problem with that is that the problem is me, so if she’s put the problem behind her...that explains why communications have been so lacking lately. As far as she’s concerned there are no problems aside from distance, and being together will cure all.

Volumes are spoken in that she did this unilaterally. She just decided for herself that she can’t deal with this now, that the problem is distance, and therefore put it and me out of her mind. What does that say about me? What does that say about how she considers me?

Today was a majestic Autumn day. I went out and everything felt so alive. I went out and problems didn’t exist. No problems, only solutions.

1844 7th Ave., Oakland

Life isn’t so bad. Amina and I can get over this problem. It’s no big deal. I love her and we don’t need these problems to get in the way. There is a simpler reason for the problems, there’s nothing inherently wrong about us. How can there be? We’ve been in love for almost three years. Our friendship also had problems, but it never stopped the love.

Things have gotten so ugly between us after we started going out, and it has only gotten worse. There are times the weather is beautiful and the music sounds good and the meaning of life isn’t disturbed by material concerns. Then it seems foolish for Amina and I to fight. Then it is obvious that our problems are the result of physical situations.

1844 7th Ave., Oakland

I called Amina this evening. It was about 1:30 in Ohio. I woke her up. She sounded tired. I told her I’d let her go back to sleep. She said she’d call me tomorrow. We’ve talked once in almost two weeks, and that was a lame conversation that we cut short.

I got angry, but why? I don’t want to be angry over petty things. I guess I do want to be actively wanted, I want someone coming after me, and I’m not getting that from Amina. So what? Forget Amina? She has too much of her own life to give me enough of what I need. I’m angry because I’m hurt, and I’m hurt because she’s supposed to be one thing and she is totally not. Great expectations.

I feel helpless and unwanted by her. I know it’s not true. I’m angry because I don’t have the maturity not to be. This is a weak point, a personality fault. I never developed the maturity to take love and accept it as it is given. I still want love and attention as a child demands love and attention.

Now I’m older and mature in other ways. I have more of a consciousness about my anger and I react to it with the means of someone my age. I feel anger, I feel hate, I want to break up with Amina, I want to get away, I want to drink, I want to die. Take the anger of a neglected child and put it in an adult and I am what you get.

1844 7th Ave., Oakland

Just one more week of classes and then two weeks of exams. It’s just the beginning and I’m considering it the end, but I can’t do this again, and I won’t. It sends my life into a tailspin, increasing the insecurity, deepening the losses.

How am I going to be living my life? No classes, no job. What right do I have to take that luxury? I clearly should be worried about my future and what I will do. I don’t know what I can do. I have no experience or skills.

It feels like Amina and I are breaking up. We’re distancing and it feels the same as breaking up. Our relationship took some serious blows and none of them have been worked out. She’s taking the line that the problem is distance, and everything would be fine if we were together. We were together over break and look what happened. Still, to hear her state any condition in which things could be fine is wonderful.

But as it is, it feels like we’re ignoring problems and it’s cold between us. I worry about how I’ll behave towards her the next time I see her. The way things have been going, it might be hard to be warm, to pretend nothing was wrong. I’m not really looking forward to our next meeting.

1844 7th Ave., Oakland

What happened between Amina and me is still here with me. I haven’t felt anything resolve. I don’t know what to think or what to feel. It has been hard not writing to Amina since she left, but that is because it has been impossible to write.

I haven’t been able to get past the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness in having believed in something that was not there between us. I believed we were one thing and we were nothing like that at all. My life without Amina would feel helpless and hopeless.

We are nothing special. We are just a couple. This is just a relationship. Just like millions of other couples in a relationship. I had thought that our relationship transcended time and being. I thought that we were special beyond any other love I could ever know. But no, we are not destined to be with each other, we are nothing special. There is no magic that is going to keep us together just because it is simply truth that we are supposed to be together. There is no glowing thread between us, always pulling us together, that had always pulled us together. It’s overwhelming.

It is not a pure love. We have separate needs. We are just two people giving and taking, compromising, searching for common ground, settling, relying on past love to build a future. I don’t know where I want to stand in such a relationship. Maybe I should stop saying “we”.

We had a petty little spat last night. Not even a spat. We were just being ultra-sensitive. She wasn’t even listening to me. Then I realized that I haven’t been anything that she needed me to be during the recent crisis at Oberlin that affected her significantly. She must have been so disappointed in me that I wasn’t there for her. She needed support and all I had to offer was cold analysis and a skeptical general assessment. Not very supportive. Empathy completely failed me.

I thought being in a relationship with Amina would be so wonderful. All of a sudden there are all these expectations, all of a sudden there’s something lacking and I’m deficient. All of a sudden I realize I’m failing, I’m not coming up with something I should. All of a sudden she needs something I can’t give.

Whatever happened to us being perfect for each other and belonging together? Now we’re failing each other miserably. Now I find that we weren’t together at the top of a mountain. She was down one side. She perceived me as being down another side of it. For all I realized, I was. It’s true. The perception of perfection makes our failings seem even worse. Maybe I shouldn’t be saying “we”.

That scathing letter that she wrote to me when she was here, it was totally valid. She later said she didn’t mean any of it, but I didn’t believe that. Her points were too specific and detailed to be spontaneous creations resulting from an isolated incident. They had to have been building up for a while. I marked the letter up with red pen, totally disrespecting her perspective and invalidating her opinion. Incredibly childish and proof that I don’t deserve her. Now I feel the things she had been feeling that led up to that letter. Feelings that I had totally missed. I lived in a haze, thinking everything between us was fine. They weren’t.

1844 7th Ave., Oakland

I don’t have to struggle too much to remember the feelings from less than a year ago. It’s no struggle at all realizing what has happened in the past year. Some memories are so striking and so unbefitting my life that I can’t believe it’s been real. How suddenly the floating dream of my life became a nasty reality.

Less than a year ago, I resolutely absolved any responsibility or feelings of guilt in how I might deal with law school. I will feel no guilt as I plan to withdraw and not tell them. I will feel no guilt as I sit on their money, trying to find new paths and new opportunities for myself. I will feel no guilt for doing what’s best for myself, when it is clear that I am the only one who can do what’s best for myself.

They bear the full responsibility for their own losses. The loss of their money is the result of their failure to foresee the futile results of their endeavors. Whatever intentions they had is no excuse for their short-sightedness and blatant disregard of . . . reality.

How can they have missed so much? How could they have missed what was right before their eyes? It’s so sad. They missed their children growing up. Times have changed and they are clueless, they are only interested in the one constant of making money. They who take life for granted. They don’t deserve it. They don’t deserve pity or mercy. They don’t deserve any concern or consideration.

My leaving law school will be no vindication for them. All they’ve done is try to keep me on a single narrow path and to be what they want me to be. I’ve always tried to run down my own path. That is what Japan was all about, yet they were still able to whisk me up like a child trying to run away and put me back on the path they wanted me to be on; a path in which they are interested only for themselves.

My life is a path. However I may try and however I may fail, I do have an idea of how I want to end up as a person. I know what I want to retain of my dreams and self-esteem and view of the world. Law school has nothing to do with any of that. I have to follow my heart and my dreams. Maybe I’ll never fulfill them, but if I don’t walk my own path, there is absolutely no chance and no worth to this life.