This is Abby, my ex-girlfriend. Since I'm from California and she's from New York, perhaps it's fitting that we met halfway, i.e. in Michigan. I used to say that she's really neurotic until I remembered an exchange in Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar" where the narrator is speaking with a former boyfriend:

Abby, Ann Arbor, April 1996

"Remember how you asked me where I would like to live best, the country or the city?"
"And you said..."
"And I said I wanted to live in the country and the city both?"
Buddy nodded.
"And you," I continued with sudden force, "laughed and said I had the perfect set up of a true neurotic and that the question had come from some questionnaire you'd had in psychology class that week?"
Buddy's smile dimmed.
"Well, you were right, I am neurotic. I could never settle in either the city or the country."
"You could live between them," Buddy suggested helpfully. "Then you could go to the city sometimes and to the country sometimes."
"Well, what's so neurotic about that?"
Buddy didn't answer.
"Well?"
"Nothing," Buddy said in a pale, still voice.

So, it is probably better to say that Abby has numerous unresolved inner conflicts.

Abby in my room, Ann Arbor, 1997

By far my favorite picture of Abby is the one at left. Her expression betrays a vague annoyance and repressed anger that are very characteristic, yet which she often denied. Thus, the honesty of the portrait really appeals to me. I loved her the most in those honest moments when I felt I was seeing her intelligence, compassion and vital energy in their raw, uncensored states. Her concern for doing what is right occasionally borders on pathological guilt, but it also drives her to many acts of kindness and good deeds. Of course, "good" and "right" can often be ambiguous adjectives, applied differently in radically varying ways depending on one's assumptions, values and worldview, but Abby always held her ground steadfastly when it came to challenges to her beliefs. I feel that was one of the major reasons we ultimately had to go separate ways, for I believe the universe is fraught with moral ambiguities and complex causalities and motivations, while she saw things in quite polarized terms: black and white, right and wrong, good and evil. This is both her greatest strength and her most heartbreaking weakness, for it propells her into many actions which I greatly admire (for politically and socially we did share many values) but it also makes the world a painful place for her, for she must endure continual disappointments as other people frequently cannot or do not meet her high expectations.

Abby and I, Ann Arbor, March 1996

Despite our differences, I love Abby. She remains a very important person to me because she stayed with me through a very difficult period in my life, for which I am grateful. In times of intense and profound depression, when lesser friends would have given up on me, Abby remained a good friend, one of the closest I have ever had. That kind of friendship is priceless; I hope that I was worthy of it. In the end, I feel I cannot really criticize her, for we are all doing the best we can to do what we think is appropriate in a complex, sometimes confusing universe that constantly challenges what we think we know.

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