My Beautiful Shrinkette

 I might have said, "let me begin at the end," but I'm not sure there can be another beginning.

If that sounds slightly garbled you'll have to forgive me, I'm feeling rather distraught at the moment. I'm in a state of deep emotional distress.

You see, Jennifer, my psychologist, and I are having a trial separation. We are estranged. I fear it could be permanent.

How was I to know the consequences of my actions?

Jennifer is young, very clever and a fine psychologist. She is also very pretty and quite precious. Jennifer is a special person. She is a delicate flower of wit and elegance and charm.

I found refuge and salvation in her ambience. With the intense brightness of her youthful gaze she sent the haunting spectres fleeing from the murky corridors and locked rooms of my tortured spirit. And the exquisite sweetness of her smile bestowed the blessing of courage upon this fearful heart and let it beat with hope and gave it strength to venture forth to find new worlds.

Jennifer is all right.

If there is a pot of gold in my life, she is the rainbow. If my back's to the wall, she is the wall.
Why on earth, then, did I give her the poem? I ask myself that question continuously.

O.K., I don't pretend it has too much literary value but it was sincere. It came straight from the heart:

In my mind, too, I see
Faces of sudden glory, of innocence and guile.
Faces to draw fantasies to flight.
But the face I keep,
That brights a light and lifts my heart within me
Is the face of tender beauty and sweet and gentle smile.
It is the face of thee.. ..

I gave her the poem and smiled. How was I to know what would happen when she read it?
There was silence. I felt my smile get heavy.

Oh, the metamorphosis that took place. From lively, engaging warmth to crusty formality. She spoke in the sonorous and weighty tones of a worthy, leather bound and venerable text book. Gone was the tenuous but tangible link of vibrant energy between us.

The atmosphere that just a moment ago was tingling and alive with the possibility of exploration and discovery was now stale, dusty and profound. Heavy with age bound doctrine.

I felt rejection. I felt distance wedge itself between us. Where before the air was filled with music of enchantment played and heard on the instrument of the senses, now there was discord and disharmony.
How was I to know? How could I have known?

Psychologists don't like poetry!

Or, if they do, they are viciously severe critics.

Jennifer, sublime shrinkette of mine, am I to be no more your couch potato?

Oh, my girlish Guru! My seer in a sea of tranquillity! Must I return to the stormy emotional maelstrom where life for me was like guerrilla warfare and I was but a banana?

I ponder these and other imponderables. Like, why did you have to have the prettiest eyes in creation. In the great scheme of things, do you think it was really necessary?

Must you abandon me?

Yes, I might have said, "Let me begin at the end," but the end might be too final. Rejection by one's psychologist is rejection absolute!

I see her next week. I am worried. I am not looking forward to it yet I cannot live with this uncertainty. I am feeling light headed. Is it because I am walking on air or has the world fallen beneath my feet?
If I could only think of something. Anything.

Hey! Wait! Wait a minute! What ..? What if psychologists like flowers? What if ..? What if psychologists like chocolates? What if ..? Yes! Oh, yes!.

~ Robert Farley

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