Art by Tarush Mohanti // Daily Nexus
I want to leave you. I want to leave you because you were never what you promised to be on paper, University. I am no longer me when I’m with you because you have stolen my identity. Why I want to leave you is written in my silent tears in bathroom stalls between one boring class and the next biased one. Why I want to leave you is written in your silent intentions, those which you could never say on paper but those which you cannot hide. You show me with dirty actions.
Don’t lie to yourself, babe. You don’t want me to succeed because you only use me to advance an agenda that was never intended to make me feel safe. You take my time, my money, my positive energy, and all of my divine love until I can no longer manufacture for you or be happy for me. You’re a liar. You’re a cheater. You deplete everything I have and I am worth more. Let me be free.
But I don’t know how to break up with you by myself. I only went steady with you in the first place because they said unanimously that everyone needs to find the perfect university to complete them. It’s a soulmate concept that was attractive to us, because who doesn’t seek meaning in their lives? And once upon a time there was something so sexual about what you had to offer. There was lust in your identity, comprised of professors with awards and the power to give an A on a paper like you believed in me, but most importantly you could get me a degree. The degree was like a golden ticket to eternal bliss and I was ready to work for you if you worked for me. But you never work for my needs and you don’t even love me because all you ever wanted to do was change me. The truth is that you make me angry, but above all you always make me sad.
I’m sad when you are financially dependent on me and I am running out of ways to let you go. Every time I want to leave, you blackmail me by hoarding my money and saying that it won’t be put to good use unless I stay because you’re not going to give it back anyway. You tell me no one will ever hire me if I leave you, because I am nothing when I am not a possession of yours.
I’m also sad that you’ve now lost your sex appeal. I’m sad when nothing about you enchants me. I sit in lecture halls inside of you and I can’t stand it because you don’t even know me or what I want to learn. You have no desire to please me, when all I want to do is please you and make you feel good.
It makes me uncomfortable that my phone is more interesting than the words coming out of my professors’ mouths. It’s a forced habit to distract ourselves with one-sided media because conforming is our only escape. These screens are sucking the life out of me. You are making me a zombie, University. You only teach me what you believe in, or what will keep the system as oppressive as it stands today. You don’t teach me truths. You lie through your teeth and I have to dedicate my life to memorizing all of your dishonesties.
Also, you never come through with resources. I thought that we were supposed to help each other. Bae, why can’t you buy me a Scantron before every test every time? Or buy my books with all of the money I give you to help me grow, to help us grow together? It’s shady that I have no idea where or how you spend my money. I thought it was like a joint bank account to help us both thrive together as ONE. Why aren’t these teachings free?
And why won’t you take me on dates, University? Why won’t you take me out during class and teach me with nature, where we can transcend professional boundaries that only make us irritated? I want to walk with you and talk with you while absorbing your academia. Why isn’t there space for me to breathe in this relationship? You put me in stuffy classrooms with child-sized desks and seats and talk at me like I’m old but too juvenile, with no room to engage with you. This feels like a condescending relationship. This feels painful. I’m not sure if you were ever into me, and now I’m insecure.
You don’t make sure that I feel worthy of something. I think you like to make me jealous and pit me against people I love. It strokes your disturbing ego that way. You love competition. I hate competition, especially with my friends, and you make us hate each other just to get your approval. All you want is for us to fan girl about you, University. And then I get jealous too, because I feel like you favor other people over me, cheating and giving them more resources depending on the color of their skin or how they interact with you. I’m not a part-time lover. I should be your priority because this is how you sold yourself to me. Then you only love me if I do things like how you formatted them to be. You don’t love my creativity or my lovely individuality, because you are so narcissistic that you can’t love anybody if they do not obey all of your conditions for being a prominent being. You make sure that I am out of touch with my artistic side and that I never question you, so as to deplete any self-compassion I had for that special magic in seeing the world outside of how you show me.
Just like how you’ve been shaming my creativity, you don’t help me with my mental health and ignore the importance of mental health aid. You just think it’s being weak, but truly, it’s me being strong in asking you for help, and you being abusive in making it worse. You don’t make sure that therapists I can relate to are around. You don’t care about my mind prospering. I think you would rather just use it in the moment, and discard it when I’m done giving you money and I am drained of love.
What am I to do after our relationship is over? I mean, I can’t count on you to be there for me with support — even to the smallest degree. You don’t care if I don’t get a job after our relationship is over because all you need is someone to control now. I think controlling me gives you a high. And I’m the one crashing in the comedowns of your power trip.
But here I write a love/hate letter to you. I am still attached to the image of you, especially that which belongs to other eyes. I am afraid of not being with you. I fear I will be absolutely nothing without you. And this tells me that I have lost myself in you, something so basic and silencing. I no longer want to identify with what you are in visions of the best parts of me. I told you that we are on a break until the year ends, so I can get my degree but be as disengaged as possible within this abusive relationship. You’re a prison, University, and I am not sorry for saying this. Until I graduate, I will deplete your resources, trick your system like how you’ve managed to trick me, and take everything you have and run away with it. You will never see me again.
Right now, in this minute and space, I am trying to find myself again, and you cannot intimidate me.
University, I no longer idolize you, but I will admit that I am still scared of you. And I know I can’t leave you until this year is over because I want to move on and no one will love me without you in my completed history. So, I will fake it. I will resist crying over your failing-grade views of me or the paranoia that everyone is out to climb on top of me in hopes of your affection. I will just be as wildly untamed as I have always been — that spirit which scared you into your system’s own insecurity. I cannot be stopped, and until this relationship is done, I will not let you define me.
In resistance and in healing
Your (almost) ex-lover,
Leila
Good riddance ???
I mean… maybe just leave then? It’s an institution that provides for over 20,000 students, of course not everyone will be happy. Drop out. Go to CC back home for a fraction of the price. Get a degree there. Evaluate what it is you want from life and move forward from there. The only real issue here is the absurd pressure society has put on high school students to blindly rush into a 30k/yr undergrad university immediately out of school.
In addition, it’s a school, it owes you nothing. The issues you list with your experiences exist because of the nature of what a university is. You wouldn’t pay for a gym membership and then complaim when it doesn’t come bundled with free groceries, would you? If you are unhappy with your decision it’s ok to be unhappy. It’s ok to regret a decision. It doesn’t have to be at the fault of the university.
One thought gets a ?! Going to community college the first two years is a great idea! I did it. Had time to consider what I wanted as a major. Got my general education classes done at a huge savings and had great instructors. It is insane to push students into huge debt straight out of high school.
Leilani, I think you’re making a fundamental mistake if you view our university through the lens of a romantic relationship (even if you’ve done it here a bit sardonically). The University is an institution. It doesn’t owe you love, attention, emotional support or anything that a lover would be expected to give their romantic partner. As college students, we’re young adults and we’re supposed to find those things ourselves. The University exists solely to educate. That’s all you can reasonably expect from it.
Jason it’s a creative way to look at an issue- like you said, it’s not literally what I expect as a lover or in a romantic way, per say, but it is a relationship and inclusive education that is not one-sided or which is taught for all types of learning needs and passions and one which is accessible and not drenched in bias and mechanical output and input is loving and a relationship we deserve. so, it is literal in the sense that I seek love in education and learning, a love to live for and work for, and I… Read more »
the education is not nurturing for all types of minds bodies souls and as you’ve written in some
of your pieces, it is silencing at times. we agree on different ways in which it is silencing, as I do not agree with some
of the ways in which you think but I also think freedom generates from a different type of education system
than what we have here with very narrow teaching and material and sources to be at our highest innovative potentials.
The primary purpose of university-any institution of higher education-is to prepare you for a career. It’s not helping a student “find him or herself” although that can be a by product of the college experience. You came to UCSB expecting to be “decolonized” and be enabled in your “activism.” You expected the university to warmly embrace “people of color” at the exclusion of anyone who didn’t fit that descriptor. Unfortunately UCSB has to embrace all, regardless of skin color. Then came the final shock-you didn’t get that “dream job” on campus because, you say, of your activism. Employers seek people… Read more »
No the primary purpose of a university is to make you a better member of society and to pass on centuries of knowledge to the next generation. Career preparation is a pleasant side effect. That might be all you care about but that’s not why college exists
That’s an ideal. Try selling that to a prospective employer at an interview and you may get laughed out of the room. Employers aren’t interested in idealism, they’re interested in what you’ll bring to their organization. What did you learn that’s applicable to the job you’re applying for, such as being able to think analytically or the ability to write coherently using proper grammar? Can you learn new things on the job? That sort of thing.
Yeah that’s why I wouldn’t try to sell that to an employer. That would be stupid. But employers don’t decide what the purpose of college is and college doesn’t give a shit what employers care about. That’s why you still have to fulfill your ethnicity requirement. And why half of you are going to be unemployed when you graduate.
Leila, I think you expect too much from the world. And I don’t mean that as a cynical statement about how the world sucks, or as a judgment about you personally. It’s a pretty typical millennial attitude. You have ideas about what you deserve and what should be provided to you but that’s not how things work for anybody. It’s up to you to get what you want. There’s no one out there handing out happiness and satisfaction. People who have it went out and got it for themselves. You choose to sit in class and play on your phone.… Read more »
I really would like to speak with you in person or over chat. I wish you weren’t on anonymous :(
Best I can do:
heylookstillanonymous at gmail
is that sarcasm? / trolling
Nope. Send me an email!
??
This spoke to me… :/
This is article is why older generations hate millenials. Jesus Christ, get a grip.
Agreed, unfortunately. The hate towards millennials is very real, at least in my part of the world (the ultra conservative inland Central Valley). The older, Vietnam era age group (male and white) is convinced millennials are out to destroy the country and have to be suppressed. I frequently see the words “traitors” and “commies” used to describe folks like the writer of this opinion piece. Quite a few blame the UC system and “leftist” faculty for this state of mind, and wouldn’t mind a purge of most if not all professors. The mere mention of “micro aggressions” and “affirmative consent”… Read more »
Wow you are so whiney. What, do you want us to beg you to stay? So many people would’ve killed to have your place. Just leave and make room for someone who will appreciate it, instead of putting on a show for attention.
I’m surprised at how many people don’t get this piece. This is a very raw account of one’s PERSONAL experience as a way to note the dichotomy between expectations we are fed about higher education and the actual reality of it. Just because you don’t relate to this piece does not mean it’s “whiney” or invalid. it’s also interesting how most of the people complaining about how “overly emotional” this piece is are the ones that pride themselves on their self proclaimed ability to think objectively. If that’s really what you’re good at then take this piece at an objective… Read more »
Roof, knowing a little about the writer from her past Nexus pieces, it’s obvious she had totally unrealistic expectations of UCSB. She’s written in the past of coming to SB expecting that the university would “decolonize her mind.” She’s also written about not being hired for her “dream job” on campus because she is an activist. I’m sorry but she’s wasted much of an opportunity most would figuratively kill for-to attend UCSB. She might have better off attending community college, figuring out if higher education was something she really wanted to pursue, instead of occupying space, running up huge debt… Read more »