nccotus

about Sally and Anita and me at Harvard 1979 to 1982.

we never got to say goodbye.

they summarily dismissed me over my presidency of the Advocate magazine. An undergraduate literary quarterly. What a disaster.

here I am 42 years later perched on a bench outside an ALF in the city of Reading, PA, home of John Updike, a onetime Harvard Lampoon member. Once upon a time I was a state hospital patient here. I have spent some time in the area in recent years trying to correct this. I fled decades ago to Southern California with a suitable mate and had the time of my life. But here I am again. We had a kid and had to return to the Norheast to get family help with the baby. Which led me back to Sally and Anita. They were the first people I called. I was so thrilled.

I don’t know why but Sally refused to talk with me. Something about her becoming a psychotherapist. She had a stick up her ass over this. I couldn’t imagine she was a very good one. That was my feeling.

Then, the John’s Hopkins debacle in ‘94 and everything went bad. I was calling up everyone I had ever known. I estranged a lot of people. Sally was one of them. Anita was kind. Sally got me into trouble. I guessed that my father was contacted. She was way out of line if that was the case. She did not have authority over me in such a regard. This never ended. I have sensed that she abused her privileges as a therapist to follow me in the most unprofessional way.

Finally I have gotten over my issues with her. I realized that it all passed through the Lord’s hands. Those close relationships were so important to me. I got hurt. But they had to end. They were formative experiences that I had to let go of. Weed out the chaff and keep the wheat.

my father celebrated the British “art of one upmanship” and self-deprecating wit. I finally realized very recently how negatively these attitudes play out in American can society where we struggle to stay positive and don’t need this negativity, a place where dreams come true. I never had that for myself! Now i see how badly I hurt that in others. Even those whom I desperately love. It has been a long learning experience since Harvard, trying to make good on what I found there. I had no idea what I was signing up for!

what I got was a deeply entrenched faith life. I could never get beyond how it started through my negative experience in my first effort to seek help from a psychotherapist, in 1983, on leave from college; a horrendous disaster. Finally, I am out from under this. “It all passed through the Lord’s hands” to make me the Christian that I am today.

Hoping to leave this place and start a new life.