06/17/2009

Dear L,
I’m starting to have negative thoughts again, and to question the sustainability of… everything.  I’m having doubts now, not only about you, but about the choices I would have to make in order to be with you sooner rather than later.  There are a few things that are clouding up our relationship and I need to write them down:

I think you are hurt by my decision to only come and see you for two weeks.  I see your side just as much as I see mine.  I think ths is a symptom of the realization that I am much more practical and you are demonstrative with no limits.  You wouldn’t hesitate to give up money or time with your family in order to spend as much time as humanly possible with me.  But I’m choosing to give you the slice of time that I think is appropriate, that doesn’t strain your family and that lets me spend time with mine before I have to go back to school.  I also need to work, to save some money in order to figure out my (and our) next steps.  I can feel your label of "selfish" all over the airwaves even if you don’t mean to and I struggle to figure out if you’re right.  Maybe this is more important than everything else and I will regret keeping you in (what I see as) balance with the rest of my life.  But it’s hard for me to make love my only guiding light. 

I’ve also suddenly been able to visualize with much more detail what life would be like if we weren’t together.  I have to confess that I’m upset to find that my loves for you and for my homeland are tied so closely together that, in a future without you I may become totally disconnected from my place of birth.  Without any family there, you are my deepest tie.  And so suddenly I feel paralyzed to make decisions and commitments (thesis topic, study abroad) in this country because if we break up I would be stuck returning to, writing about,  or living in a country that is more yours than mine.  And I’m afraid that you are part of my claim to it.  It makes me feel like a fraud sometimes.