Brandi I miss her. God, how I miss her. She was the single most important stabilizing force in my life for the last several weeks. Granted, she was having problems, too... but she survived them, and managed to support me through mine as well. I loved her. I loved her dearly. I love her dearly. Only God and I will ever know how much this woman meant to me; how much she still means to me. It was cruel, the breakup. It was heartless, it was evil. But the greater cruelty would have been to continue. The cruelty was in the action, not the delivery. It is heartless to cut off a man's arm... but is it not more so to let him die from the infection contained therein? Brandi may not have been an infection, but she did infect me. She infected my heart, my soul. She made me feel a way that I have never felt before. Now that it's over, I no longer feel that way. But I miss the feeling. I miss my... I miss Brandi. She is not my girlfriend, she is not my Brandi. Not any more. She's just Brandi. And I miss her. The tears have dried up -- those rivers that already poured -- but the storms still rage, their potential liquid torrents intact. Yet drops cascade freely through my mind, inundating the path in sorrow, evaporating just below the surface. She may never forget me, she may never forgive me... but she will be better off not living with my dead presence. As will I. I lived more while I was with her than I ever did before... yet I did not realize it. It is said that one never knows what one has until it's gone. I know now what I had, and I wail for that loss! But I cannot go back. I loved her more than life itself. Yet I can say that about several great friends. In a year, she became as close to me as the best of them. To this day I would lay down my life for her... but she is not the only one for whom I would sacrifice myself. That, in the end, is the problem. She is to me the best of friends... but she is to me the best of friends. That is what we were before. We tried something else, and we found it flawed. There was no "spark", no "warm glow", no... whatever euphemism or contraction you use, the feeling that I'd found the right person was not there. I lived in the world, yet had died in the relationship. To continue down the shattered path would eventually annihilate a gorgeous friendship. It would have broken down at some point; this way, it did not take everything else with it. Once the novelty of a new relationship wore off, I found myself with the same old friendship and an unpleasant feeling of constraint. The friendship is good, it is perfect: it is a goal for which one should aim in the search for a soulmate. It will bring contentment in this life and moksha (salvation) in the world beyon... oh, wait: wrong subject. But it will still bring contentment in this life, and contentment is good. ;-) The constraint is bad. The constraint would destroy my feeling, which would kill us both. I feared foremost about what it would eventually do to her. I did not look forward to what it would do to me, but that was secondary. Primary, secondary, or otherwise... the reasons existed. It had to be done. But nobody says I have to like it. You are near perfect, Brandi Lynn. You are perfect for someone. If I could have one wish, I would wish that someone were me. I love you. I hope you find happiness for yourself. ---- I leave now. I leave my blathering to history. I leave my body and mind to fate and time. I leave my soul to God. And I leave you to continue as you will. - Bob November 16th, 1999