Well, I�m not sure that nature vs nurture comes into question here. I think that being self-sufficient in the extreme and extreme neediness are two sides of the same coin, especially when one feels undeserving.

I had just really, fully embraced that, �It�s never going to be me,� attitude. That�s not to say that I never wanted to be cared for, or loved. I was emotionally needy to the extreme, but I kept that knowledge close to me, as a deep dark secret.

Of course, when that stuff does finally come to you, at first it feels very uncomfortable and wrong. You feel like the rug can be pulled out from under you, at any moment, as you well know.

Although, I will say that my early acceptance of being �non-deserving� bought me a kind of freedom that I wouldn�t have had otherwise. It gave me permission to do for myself. I stopped waiting for someone else to bestow anything upon me. In the process of this, I also realized that the most valuable love a person can receive is love from oneself. I don�t love myself all the time. My relationship with myself is the same as any other relationship. We have spats, disagreements, general malaise, and also incredibly loving, tender and emotional moments, just like any other relationship. I don�t believe I�m different from anyone else, either. It�s just that people tend to avoid that line of thinking because it messes with our understanding of �self� and �other.�

And, by �early acceptance� I mean I figured this out in my late 20s. Before that, I was self-sufficient out of necessity, but that�s because I was incapable of holding down a relationship for very long. I was really far too crazy, and maybe that was my nature. My five year marriage was too complex for me to try to define here, and besides, I have no desire to do so.

Anyway, the wedding was lovely. Saturday turned out to be a really long day, overall. It�s a given that getting mixed up with Adam�s sister will result in some sort of shenanigan�s and this time was exaggerated because she was preparing to leave that evening.

She wanted us to pick up her dressmakers dummy from a friends storage locker in Chelsea and move it to her boyfriend�s basement in Park Slope, Brooklyn. At first, Adam suggested to her that since she is going to be out of the country for two years that maybe, one should not move ones items from the care of a close long-term friend, to the care of a mere boyfriend. The emphasis meaning that her boyfriends usually aren�t around for two months, let alone two years, especially when she�s about to leave the country.

She narrowed her eyes and said, �I detect a note of judgment in your voice,� and Adam dropped it. He�s been trying hard to stop being the over-protective older brother, telling his little sister how to live her life, and play more of a supportive role. This is something that they�ve mutually agreed upon and it�s clear that Adam has been working on it.

It�s so hard not to go back to old habits with siblings. This is a holdover from their high school days, when Adam was the athletic, handsome, body-building teenager and she was the much-smaller-than-average flaming gay kid that got picked on. Adam got into a lot of fist-fights as a teenager and nearly every single one was due to him protecting his younger sibling or other weaker students.

But, that meant, that we were off to Chelsea to somehow fit a dressmakers dummy into a Honda Civic and bring it to Park Slope, on a Friday afternoon.
Traffic was not kind, and we ended up barely having enough time to grab a couple of quick bagel sandwiches, change our clothes at the boyfriend�s house and attempt to get to Queens during rush-hour on a Friday.

The boyfriend turned out to be a super-nice guy. He loaned Adam a pair of cufflinks because he lost one of his in transit (we found it later in the car).

Oh, and the wedding turned out to not be on Long Island. It was in Long Island City, in Queens (you can see how I got confused). Because traffic was horrendous, we missed the ceremony completely and arrived at the start of the cocktail hour. While that�s not the ideal situation, I�m not sure the bride and groom even noticed, and I was kind of happy to go straight to the cocktail hour, anyway. Wedding ceremonies always make me cry. Heck, the maid of honor�s toast made me cry, and I don�t even know them.

The venue was gorgeous; probably the nicest I�d ever seen. It was a solarium on the East River, with a perfect view of Manhattan. We arrived just as the sun was setting behind the buildings.

The party went until Midnight, and then there was an after-party (that we skipped). I loved the music, and I�m still dreaming about the veggie platter the caterer�s prepared for Adam and I; it was so good.

I thought it would be stuffy and boring, but it turned out to be festive and celebratory. I guess New York Italians really know how to throw a party. At least, these New York Italians do.

I was surprised at how casual it was, given how fancy the invitation was; however, the clothes were definitely of higher than average quality and I don�t think I�ve ever seen a wedding where such a large number of the non-wedding-party guests had gotten professional up-do�s done.

Oh, and by the way, I ended up wearing the dress that I thought I couldn�t wear. Friday morning, I saw it hanging in the closet as we were getting ready and I said to Adam, �Let�s see if I can fit into this thing.� I don�t know what miracle occurred, but it suddenly fit just fine. Perhaps when I had tried it on before, I�d been sporting some extra water weight.

After the wedding, we were supposed to stay at the apartment of one of Adam�s old high school friends, but the guy fell asleep before we arrived and we couldn�t wake him for anything. So, he called up another high school friend, and he invited us to stay over (even though, by this time, it was 1AM). He and his girlfriend have a new baby. Because the kid doesn�t sleep through the night, and he�s currently unemployed, he takes the night-shift. He happened to be up, anyway.

We slept there, and played with the kids the next morning. They have two girls, besides the new baby boy. While I�m not exactly keen on this particular friend of Adam�s, it�s clear that he�s extremely proud of his children and gets a lot of joy from them.

We left fairly early, grabbed some bagels and headed home.

Adam is downstairs reading essays for the end of semester, and I came upstairs to work on my writing sample for my application. I haven�t gotten started, yet.

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