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.
