Finding peace

Now playing: February, Lovin' You, Iowa, What Do You Hear in These Sounds, After All, When I Was a Boy, The Babysitter, Christians and the Pagans- Dar Williams

I just had this really beautiful dream. And when I woke up, I was so at peace with conflicts I've had with some people. And so at peace with Brandi, in particular.

In the dream, I was teaching and coaching basketball, of all things (I love basketball, but I wouldn't say that I would necessarily be a brilliant basketball strategist).

I was meeting all of these new, strange people. And one girl, in particular, Elizabeth or Katherine or something like that, and I were talking together, a lot.

One day, I was supposed to be getting to a basketball game that I was late for (and my guys were wondering where the hell I was undoubtedly), but I was enamoured with this girl. We were talking and I was so charmed by her. At one point in the dream, I'm asking her questions alluding to why we shouldn't date. And in a vulnerable way, she's giving me answers alluding to all kinds of excuses for why something like that wouldn't work out. And all I wanted to do was hold her. I was falling in love.

And I woke up and all I could think was that when I saw Brandi next, whenever that might be, that I'd just want to give her a hug and tell her that it's alright. That it was sad that we couldn't make our relationship work. It was sadder that she didn't feel like she could make a friendship work, after the fact. But that it's really alright. That I've just missed her. And that we'll both be ok.

There is so much in the world that I can't control. No matter how much I might want to and sometimes need to.

Sometimes it is tragic, as with Brandi's and my break-up (if you've never heard Dar Williams' February, I think it captures the experience pretty well), and our subsequently losing our friendship. But we may still have limited control over some circumstances, especially when they're not in our hands only.

And do our best to love our lives despite the tragedies that life sometimes has to offer. We cannot always prevent them, no matter how much we may try.

Losing that relationship and all of the beauty it held for me was the most serious tragedy in my life, thusfar. My professors and I don't talk anymore. My mother and I don't talk enough, these days. My family and I don't talk enough, generally, these days.

But losing that relationship is the saddest thing that's happened to me in my lifetime. Because my love was so strong, so complete, and as pure a feeling as I've ever had in my life.

And it's ok.

If you ask me, I'll tell you this really beautiful story of two young people in love. It's a great story. And today I can tell it without bitterness or pain on my heart or self-pity. It's a really beautiful, sweet story if anyone ever wants to hear it, some day.

Two kids spent most of their time together, in college, for about a year. Best friends (at least Brandi was my best friend; she always said that her mom was her best friend forever, so I could never crack that category). The girl headed to Washington, D.C. for an internship and they held hands all the way to take the boy to the airport so he could return to Wichita. They talked on the phone all the time while the boy did his pre-student-teaching at Wichita North High School and the girl did an internship with the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C.

When she returned, they were counselors at a Kansas Regents' Honors' Academy at their college. And they fell in love.

She returned to D.C. He went to grad school at KU in Lawrence. And they spent three amazing months together in Washington, D.C., exploring the big city and experiencing the bigger world around them, together, for the first time. They lived together, they worked together, they walked all over the city, together, and generally spent almost every waking moment together, many days. They saw Cornell West and Reverend Eugene Waters and a million artsy movies at artsy theaters and from artsy video stores that they didn't have in Wichita, Kansas. They talked about race relations and social security and about every political issue under the sun, because they were young idealists out changing the world.

The girl returned to Lawrence to study for her Master's in Public Administration, even though the boy encouraged her to check out more prestigious schools since she had the grades. But she wouldn't have anything of it. She missed him and she wanted to be close to him.

They lived together and studied at the University. He studied for his Master's in gifted education, his Master's in special education, and a Ph.D. in special education policy, which soon became study for something much more than a Ph.D. or special education policy. She studied for her Master's in Public Administration and worked with a great group called Study Circles at the United Way of Wyandotte County bringing parents and community members together to discuss important matters of education policy.

They fought. A lot. Far too much. They were in love. But their passion was perpetually spilling over.

I understand a lot of that fighting better in my old age. A lot of frustrations about different outlooks on the world. The bulk of Brandi's life was in her real world job; the bulk of my life was wrapped up in a very theoretical Ph.D. I was studying a lot; a lot of things for the first time. And Brandi and I would talk about them, all the time. And argue about them, all the time. And it wore on Brandi, I think.

But, you know, it's funny. A lot of people give up on those arguments, I think. It does wear on them, and their relationships and friendships.

But the truth is that, generally, it is our failure to engage those difficult conversations and issues, and the ways that we discourage them, that undermines so many of our relationships and larger efforts, rather than our engaging them too much, I'm pretty clear.

More specifically, it is our failure to listen.

That was my greatest failure in Brandi's and my relationship, I think. Which is ironic, because it is one of my biggest strengths, today.

I didn't listen to Brandi, nearly enough. I was too focussed on "being right." On insisting on my passionate, self-righteous outlooks on the world. And I listened far too little to Brandi during that time. To be fair, she listened to me far too little, as well. But it was too much bickering and not enough listening and appreciating one another's perspectives, I think.

And that is what undermines most of the important things that we want and need in life, I think. We don't listen and appreciate each other well enough. I'm getting better at it. And now and forever I have a long way to go. But it featured so big in the friendship and relationship in my life that was closer than any I had had then or since.

And after two years of living together in Kansas and bickering fairly regularly, the girl broke it off.

It's a really sad and sweet story. The early part, in particular, is very sweet. And there's many more details to that story that would really fill in the sweet. Eating lunch at the park, every day. Finding free snacks at happy hours around town. Visiting DuPont Circle and being around an openly gay community of people for the first time (I had visited the Castro in San Fransisco, but it wasn't quite the same thing as living and working in D.C. and visiting DuPont Circle regularly). Renting porn with a girl for the first time. Long, deep discussions with Brandi's amazing boss and USC professor, Theo Brown. Experiencing everything great that Washington D.C. has to offer.

And it has a sad ending.

And I am making peace, this year, with both that initial sad ending. But, much more importantly, the sad turn that this story recently took, where the boy and the girl, who were best friends in college, don't talk anymore because the girl, who married another boy, decided that she couldn't keep talking.

And the sad thing about the whole mess was that learning to talk and listen to one another better was what kept two friends from staying friends.

I've got to get to bed. Hopefully, I'll have similarly sweet dreams for the rest of the night.

Love,
Ben