I have returned from THE GREAT BEYOND to tell you that it's not all peaches and crackers there, you know. It's just as crazy and stressful as you've expected it to be. Yes sir.

Well, I've had an interesting week. How interesting? Well, I spent the beginning of the week ramping up my schedule to hit an important deadline on July 1st at work. Then yesterday (June 24th) I took my son to a Mets game to celebrate his 21st birthday. Can you believe it? I certainly can't believe it. My little baby is going to be 21 years old very soon. Crazy stuff, I tell you.

Well, did the Mets win? No, they did not. Silly Mike Cameron dropped an important fly ball hit by the dreadful Ken Griffey Jr. (boooooooooo!) to lose the game in the 7th inning. You must have heard the booing. I think everyone in NYC chimed in for a bit there. Actually, I must admit that I booed, too. It was fun, but then I felt badly for the players. I mean how shitty is it to be playing your heart out on the field to then have one error occur, and then have most of the stadium join in a very loud chorus of booos? Well, I guess that they get paid handsomely to field those boos.

I got a little sunburnt. Just a bit on the top of my shoulders. I brought my buddy Dave with us (and my son's fiance, who had never been to a major league baseball game before in her entire life...she thought it was a bit boring). Dave and Leo (my son) are huge Mets fans. Dave forgot the sun block lotion. Yeah, he's a guy...he forgets stuff...get over it. He felt bad at one point when he realized that my shoulder (the one he could see) was getting really red. He kept touching my shoulder and telling me how hot it was. ("Hot" as in "temperature," not as in "sexy," he's married and not allowed to notice how sexy my shoulders are.) Then he took off his own baseball hat and covered my shoulder with it. He doesn't have much hair left on the top of his head and I worried that he might get a burn on his dome. But he said that his hat was making his head sweat. It was a sweet attempt to keep my shoulder from getting more burnt than it already was...and it worked. My right shoulder is much more burned than my left (Dave was sitting on my left side). Then we spent two hours sitting in rush-hour traffic trying to get out of NYC. Not so bad. I can think of ten people whom I would rather not sit in a car with during rush-hour traffic, and not one of those people were in the car with me yesterday. We didn't get lost on the way out of the city (two-for-two, baby!). The car behaved quite well (Good little car! Good car!). Overall, it was a good day.

Then I returned to work today to learn that my July 1st deadline has been extended for 2-3 weeks. Yes sir, an interesting week. You may notice my fairly light tone of voice this evening, no? Yeah, it's because I got laid, and very well at that. Caron is just amazing. We had a thoroughly fun romp after I left work. It's amazing how much better I feel after I've had a good orgasm. I highly recommend it. Sex with Caron always, always satisfies me; but it always makes me want more, more, more! I know that that doesn't seem to make much sense, but trust me, it's a good thing.

Hi, folks. Guess it's time for an update with the psycho situation (see previous blog). Well, we've met four times now, and this most recent one was insightful. Sarah the psychologist asked me to talk about my relationship with my father. [Aside note: We've already established that my mom is a narcissist, which is so obvious that it hurts...sort of like when you whale your big toe on the sharp leg of the coffee table and rip the toenail halfway off, where you can't put it back and (Oh God!) where you certainly can't remove it from the skin, but you continue to try to walk around with it halfway off and...I think you get the point.] Anyway, she had me blather on about him [Dad, that is] and explain my relationship with him since the beginning of my memories of him.

I get to the end of "Life With Dad As I Know It" and she says, "Did you realize that your father, too, is a narcissist?" I say, "No, you're going to have to explain that to me." She goes on to take each example that I've given her and delineate how each specific characteristic employed by my dad shows clearly just how narcissistic he is. "Very interesting," I say. "I guess that explains a lot." I then ask her how I can get around this, so that he and I can have some kind of meaningful relationship in the future. "You may not be able to," she says with a somewhat sympathetic smile. "You may just have to give up on it."

That was a bit depressing, but we went on to talk about all the ways that I could possibly work around it. She didn't just leave me hanging, but she didn't want me to get my hopes up too much. I understand, she's doing the same thing that any medical doctor would...seeing as though she IS a medical doctor. Actually, after giving her comments quite a bit of thought, she seems to be right on the money with her "diagnosis-at-a-distance" of my father. That really sucks for me, because I've always had this misconception that he always loved me, even when my mother wasn't allowing him to get involved in my and my brother's life. But now that I look more closely, he actually loved the "thought" of me and my brother (he loved the "thought" of having children), but never really got involved in our lives. And it wasn't my mother keeping him from getting involved in our lives, it was him not WANTING to be more involved in our lives. What he really wanted to do was to focus on his career, while having a nice home and nice wife and nice children that the wife would take care of, and that he wouldn't have to put any effort toward...besides attending a few little league games (of course, with his briefcase opened on his lap, doing work). Hey, at least he attended my brother's baseball games, that's certainly better than nothing.

Wow, I just re-read all that I wrote and (Wow, again) boy, am I bitter. Yes, folks, you heard it here first. I'm bitter and angry with my lovely father. He's a shmuck to the Nth degree when it came to being a proper father to me. Yikes. I hope that having a narcissistic mother AND father haven't made me a narcissistic parent myself. Seems like I've got a new topic for Sarah and I to discuss the next time that we get together.

So I've started counselling therapy with a psychologist, because I'm tired of feeling as though my past is controlling my future. And because my father (who's also a psychologist, but not a clinical one...stay with me if you don't know the difference, I'll explain it later) recently diagnosed me with Reactive Attachment Disorder. I've seen Sarah the psychologist three times so far, most recently this past Thursday (June 3). I'm not so sure how she's intending to help me, but in reflecting on our first three sessions, I think that she's helped me begin to deal with my "difference."

By "difference" I mean that all my life I've felt very different from everyone. I'm not just whistling Dixie here. I really am different. So different that my parents and my entire family didn't (and still doesn't) know how to accept me or relate to me. So different that I've never EVER met anyone who was even remotely like me (until recently, more on that below). This reality has governed all of my relationships that I've ever had during my entire life. It's clearly governed all of my "significant other" choices. And it's been the cause of many a poor judgement call on my part. I've spent my entire life trying to find someone who was "like me." In my rush and optimism, I've mistaken lust, eagerness, and hope for likeness, and have caused myself and many others much heartache.

How has Sarah helped me with this feeling of being different? Well, first of all, she has affirmed the fact that I am truly different. This seems like a wierd thing to say? No? Although I've felt so different from all others who walk the earth, and I know this truth so clearly, all I've gotten from various people is: "Oh, Belinda. You're not that different. Everyone feels different. We're all different from everyone else, but we're all really the same in our differences." Well, I'm here to tell you that this might be the case for many people out there, but it's a load of horse pucky for me. I'll try to explain this concept: Generally when you have a friend who feels different in some way, you can reassure her/him with clear examples of how many people feel the same way that they do, in their specific circumstance. You can talk them down from their high horse of depression by relating their own similar story to a person (or number of persons) who you know or have known in the past, or you can relate to them a book you have read or television program that you've seen that illuminates (I almost wrote "eliminates") their own story, or you can have them speak to someone who has experienced the same situation that they're experiencing right now. Also, you can nearly always "see" that person's character or personality in someone else, as a similiarity between people. Well, I've never been able to do that for myself, and no one has ever been able to do that for me. Strange, eh? Yes, strange.

"So what are you? Some kind of alien?" Actually, that would explain much, but no, I'm not. How can I tell? Well, I've given birth to another human, so that proves my humanity. Having Sarah agree with me (in my being radically different from everyone else) has been a bit freeing, intellectually speaking that is. As far as the emotional basis goes, it still sucks. HOWEVER, when I met Caron, I knew that there was something radically different about him, too. He's the closest thing that I've ever found to be "like me." This is a huge deal in my life, and as a result, I'm completely devoted to him. The adage "Wild horses couldn't drag me away" is entirely truthful here. In fact, I never could have begun to work with a psychologist without Caron's support. And I wouldn't be able to meaningfully continue with Sarah if he disappeared from my life. It sucks that I'm not able to do this by myself, but that's the way it is...I need him. That's another whole blog entry (regarding "needing" someone) which will have to wait for another time.

I guess that's all that I want to say today. But before I go, here's my Lesson For The Day: A clinical psychologist is one that works with patients directly to "cure them." A research psychologist (like my dad) does research in the field of psychology to discover new methods of therapy or to challenge the previously held beliefs in the arena of psychology. An interesting tidbit conveyed to me by Sarah: "Psychologists make some of the most ineffective parents." Great. That's just great. (Author's Note: The last two quasi-sentences were said with heavy sarcasm in the tone of voice.)