Ben.

I've been holding this inside all day. But I need to tell you all about a young man named Benjamin Buckley.

I met Ben back in the summer of 2008 when we were apart of the acting company at the Chautauqua Theatre Festival. Whereas most of us had auditioned through our fancy conservatory programs, Ben--who was a struggling actor based in Chicago at the time--was there based on a recommendation. Not too shabby.

Ben and I were very similar; bright dispositions with a dark interior, and I think we understood each other pretty well, and as we found ourselves working together we forged a great bond. "I see you, Clifton, I see you," he once said, knowingly wagging his finger at me, acknowledging that, although I presented myself one way, what was going on underneath was much more complex. And I knew he'd seen it, because I knew that he was the same. That's one of the reasons we got on so well. That and our penchant for laughing at things that only we seemed to find ridiculous and absurd--outsiders with a knack for sniffing out bullshit.

Life took us on different paths after that summer, and we didn't contact each other again. But that didn't stop me from thinking about him from time to time.

I learned today that he threw himself from atop a nine-story building several months ago.

Ben killed himself.

I respect the decision he made. Sometimes you get to a place where you just want the pain to stop. Whatever is raging inside of you becomes overwhelming, and drugs don't work, sex doesn't work, love doesn't work, money doesn't work, work doesn't work, nothing works to fill up that hole inside of you, that void. Nothing soothes that wound, the immensity of it.

I've spent nearly the entire day counterintuitively trying to process all this and trying not to think about what happened. Hasn't worked. I tried to work some of my feelings out via the show tonight, but that didn't really work either.

Then backstage, right before the last scene, I whispered to myself "why did you do that, Ben?" And I choked the tears back and ran on for my final entrance.

When someone dies you often get people coming out of the woodwork saying "he was such a great guy, a great spirit, blah blah blah", and I'm cynical so to me it's all old hat. But it's true. Ben was pretty fucking cool. I'm sorry that he was suffering the way that he was; I'm sorry his family and friends have to pick up the pieces. I'm sorry we didn't keep better tabs on each other.

I don't like what he did, but he did what he felt he had to do, and I respect that.

It's too late to let you know now, but I love ya, Ben. Really do.

Loved.