Belonging...

I'm working late on this I.E.P...on a night where I finally feel like I belong at this school...and on my team...

This feeling...of belonging...it's one of feelings that most of us want to feel, most, I think...so coveted...that people can and do use it to manipulate one another, all the time...when they're able...it's not good for us to do this with one another...but there we go and do it anyway...if we think it will get us what we think we want...which we often do...until the fantasy of that kind of life wears off...and the reality sinks in...

I was thinking, today...after reflecting on that meeting about the student resisting all the people trying to control him, right now...

That losing Brandi...as terribly painful as it was for me...

Was probably good for me...

To have to face my own control issues...

Issues that I will inevitably face with my own children...especially as they grow up...and move beyond my influence...

I handled Brandi's and my breaking up terribly...I was jealous and mean (inadvertantly...I wasn't trying to be mean) and angry and in so much pain I could barely stand it...I was making Brandi feel bad to avoid having her leave me altogether...more out of my pain, than out of any conscious strategy...

And it just pushed her farther away, every time...

And now she's barely even friends, really...more in name, than in reality...

She's not a friend I could call up...or email...or ever really get together with...or hang out with...sometime...when I'm thinking about it...

We're just people who used to be best friends...and who've just had this falling out...that just seems irreconcilable to one of them, right now...for whatever reasons...

I've apologized a million times...about things that she totally deserves apologies for...and I've apologized about things that, in retrospect, I think were foolish to apologize for...things that I think my instincts were right on, the first time...but apologies that I thought would make the peace...

I miss her...

But I think the whole experience has been a necessary learning experience...

Because God knows no book or no lesson preparing for such a situation would or could have ever really prepared me, I don't think...not totally...

It was just this really sad experience that I had to live through...to learn the lesson, I suppose...

But it probably was the hardest lesson I've ever had to learn in my entire life...

And I have no intentions of letting it go to waste...

When I have kids...and they begin to grow up...they're going to need space...and they're going to leave the nest...and I'm going to miss them...

But I need to give them the room to spread their wings...

As Brandi told me, right after we broke up...

She's a caterpillar...growing into a butterfly...and she needs the freedom to spread her wings and fly...

And I wish I would have given her that freedom, better than I did...I did my best...and I went to three therapists at a time, at one point, and read every psychology and relationship book I could get my hands on, to do as good a job as I could to let her go as well as I could...

It does bring you some satisfaction, I think, that when you fuck something up royal...to at least think to myself, "I know I did everything in my power to do that thing better...and there's just not much more that I think that I could have done better in that moment"...

I hope she knows that I did my best...that I did really want what was best for her...even as I was blinded by my own fears and pain and control issues...

Most of us are like this, I think, at some level...we fuck shit up all the time...and we just can't see it, sometimes...but we really do want what is best for one another...generally...

But Brandi did particularly well by me...and I wanted best for her, most of all...

And now, I think...maybe it was good...having to deal with all of that...

So that maybe it will be easier...when my kids leave my nest...

This feeling I have, right now...this feeling of belonging...with my team...and my school...

This was the feeling I had with Brandi...that we could fight...and disagree...and work together...and hurt together...and be all the stronger for it...

I wish I knew why Brandi...and Tom...and Jas...and all my friends feel like they can't reconcile in this kind of way, right now...in a way that makes us all stronger...individually...and together...

But...for whatever reasons...they don't...

When I feel these feelings...these feelings of belongingness...and listen to this music...I'll probably be listening to this Dar Williams live album all night, until I get this stupid I.E.P. done...

I think of Brandi...of especially that summer in 1998...when we were most in love...and the last time that this feeling was strongest...this feeling of belongingness...

I wish she could share it with me, right now...

I've got like 3 serious dating prospects...and several other women in the building interested in dating...

All of them are special in their own way...one of them, in particular, reminds me of Brandi...

She's a math teacher...who brought me calculators, today:):)...

But...truth be told...as pathetic as it is for my life...

None of them are Brandi...

I hope one day I can stop saying that...

I miss you, Fisher...

Love,
Ben