I need a sympathetic ear...

I had a great day, today...

But sometimes I have evenings like tonight...and I jsut need someone to talk with...and not try to steer me away from where my heart is in the moment...and just listen to me...

Here's the line of thinking that got me to where I'm at, right now...

My colleagues were so supportive of me while I had to finish an I.E.P., today, for a kid I work with...it was a great I.E.P. meeting...I bonded with the mom and with the kid...and I'll write all about that later, I promise...

My the special ed teacher who's been helping me with bureaucratic requirements of the I.E.P. process was driving me crazy...she's getting better...but she was still driving me crazy...

I had to leave early, today, I was getting so frustrated with the way that she was applying subtle pressure through the whole meeting to get what she wanted and to move the meeting at the pace she wanted...even though I had a great day...

And how she badly she made me feel through the whole process...so completely contrasted with how supportive everyone else was being...

That it totally reminded me of my grad school days with Tom...how he'd do the same, but much more overtly...and how it literally drove me crazy, for a time...and how it helped tear apart the only and most important thing that's ever mattered to me in my life...my relationship with Brandi...

I want to say, up front, that I am totally and one hundred percent responsible for everything in my life...for all of my mistakes...in grad school...with Brandi...with everyone...

Having said that...Tom was a terrible mentor, in retrospect...and he really made life miserable for me, and by proxy, for Brandi, through the whole process...

And it had everything to do with us breaking up, in retrospect, now knowing just how supportive good teachers can be of students and fellow teachers...

Tom was just kind of an asshole, much of the time...and he treated me like shit, much of the time...and I didn't know any damn difference, at the time, because I was so young...and it was a good program...and there were all kinds of reasons to invest the kind of trust that I invested in Tom and that program...much of which was overwrought, in retrospect...

Anyway...as I've thought about it, tonight...I've been so angry and hurt...thinking about how I took that relationship, the one with Brandi, for granted...and threw it all away for some stupid fuckin' Ph.D. program that I didn't even end up finishing...and that fuckin' son-of-a-bitch...who didn't care about a damn thing...except for his fuckin' grants...and his little fuckin' name in a little fuckin' field...and not even contributing much, substantially, to the field, to top it all off...

It was the dumbest and most serious mistake of my life...fucking up that relationship under the really pretty overwhelming pressures of grad school...

I was just young and stupid and I just didn't know any goddamn better...

And I miss her so goddamn much...

I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry...

I'm so sorry, Brandi...

I tried so hard...and I just fucked it up...

I just want one person to understand...and to not mock me...or want to get past it...or whatever stupid fuckin' advice that so many people give without really understanding, at all, I don't think...

I just want a friend...one...who will listen...who knows how to listen well...to just listen...

Someone I can be myself with, totally and completely...and never have to hold anything back...

I've not met her, is the truth...there are many women interested...there was awkward moment, today, I think, between two girls who I think are both interested and me, when we all bumped into each other in the office, today...

There's just noone who is my best friend, yet...

Do you know what that's like?...

To have a best friend...someone closer than you've ever been with anyone in your life...

And to just totally lose touch with them...with no possibility of getting in touch with them...

Do you know terrible that feels?...to have the one person who you shared the most of this huge and one of the most important chunks of your life with...

Just disappear off the face of the earth?...

It's fucked up, is what it is...

When will this finally leave my heart?...

Surely there's got to be a statute of limitations on pining for an old flame/old friend...

I don't even care, truth be told...

I just want one friend who I can share it with...who won't give me all kinds of shitty advice...and just listen...just like Brandi did...when Jenny and I broke up...

I'm an atheist, as a technical matter...though faith and religion and spirituality and morality are central to my life...

But if there is one thing that would make me believe that I am being punished by God...it is that I had that friendship...and I don't have even a superficial one with her, anymore...

Do you know how rare some people are?...

Do you know how fucked up it is to find out how rare they are until they're gone?...

And there's not one goddamn thing that I can do about it...

I may be going on a Washington D.C. trip to the Holocaust Museum this summer on a district grant...

And the one person that would be most excited to hear about it...

I can't even talk with...

This is fucked up...

Goddamn it, Brandi...

Do you know how awesome it is...to talk with just one person...who understands you better than anyone else...and who understands the world more like you do than anyone else...and to just be able to talk with them...about anything...about politics...about friends...about family...about life...and know that they understand more like you than anyone you know?...

Do you know how great that is?...

And how fucked up it is to lose it...forever...

It's so cliche, isn't it?...it doesn't even seem special to a lot of folks, I'm sure...

But those people can fuck off...because it was damned special to me...

And now I don't have anyone to share it with, anymore...

Maybe God does punish us forever for our mistakes...

Or maybe just Brandi does...

I've been talking with people, lately, about Bill Bradley...and what a great guy he is...how he's the last greatest Presidential candidate that America has had...

And every time I do...I think about Brandi and I going up to Iowa during the 2000 Democratic primary...

And I think about talking about Bill Bradley...

With someone who cared...

And goddamn if I don't miss it...

Goddamit, Fisher...

Why'd you settle?...goddamn it...

God...if you exist...and I can have just one thing in this world...and I'll forego the rest...

It's just one person like Brandi...maybe someone who can stick it out a little better...but other than that...she'll do...

It was the last, deepest love I ever felt in my life...

And I'm just so sad that I can't replicate it...no matter how hard I've tried...

Goddamn you, Fisher...

How horrible is it...to be doomed...to a life where you're constantly saying to yourself...

The last time I really connected with a human being...

Will just never be replicated, again...

Because no one can fill those shoes...because they're too goddamn big...and I know anyone with smaller feet just won't do...

I would have, then...and I would now...

Give up everything for that feeling again...

Everything...

All I need is a genuinely sympathetic ear...

And the last one I knew...won't talk with me, anymore...because she wants to leave me behind...

I need to change and have one night to relax...

Have a great night, everyone...

Love,
Ben