Following my Own Advice

Yesterday was a great day. Bart, Wilson, Jimmy and I headed for the Cities where i was going to meet with Christy to go over the slide shows for the wedding reception and then we were going to pick up Ricardo and come back home. I loved spending time with Christy. I genuinely like her and am so happy to have her becoming part of our family.

In the meantime Bart had taken Jimmy and WIlson to the Como Zoo, where they had had a great time, and then we picked up Ricardo who was smiling. He had apparently had a good week because he smiled more than he has in a long time. He was one of the best wrestlers at the camp and even had an opponent tell him that he felt like he was wrestling a guy with three arms. Ricardo may have been happy to see us too -- he thought the food was awful at camp and was hungry. We had a nice trip home.

The only glitch was that I had told Christy something I should not have talked about yet. It was in regards to Salinda and I had been doing a great job of keeping my mouth shut. I have been telling everyone involved in the situation (it has to do with birth family contact) that i am going to keep my feelings and thoughts to myself and remain uninvolved unless asked for help . Well, I slipped, then Christy told Kyle, and Kyle texted Salinda and Salinda called me. And there should have been a big argument but it really wasn't quite like that.

Instead I was very honest with her about my feelings and told her that I was waiting to talk to her until I could feel better about what I might say. I also told her that I should have followed my own advice and I apologized for talking to Christy at all.

I really hate the "he said that she said that he mentioned to her that he wanted her to tell him all that stuff about him and her" kind of drama that teenagers seem to love. And I let myself slip into it. I'm not mad at Christy, or Kyle, or Salinda ... just a bit irked at myself for not following my own advice.

I told Salinda that the bottom line is that all of us in this situation need to own our own feelings, because they will be much different for each of us, and to communicate the same thing to everyone -- not to try and figure out what someone else wants to here. I think it makes good sense. Now if I can just remember to do it.

Following the conversation we had a few very positive texts back and forth. After years of complex manipulation, I explained to her that it is difficult to trust, but I hope that the words she texted are true. If they are, then she has come a long way, is getting very mature, and we just may make it through this after all. It's been a long long road.

Now if I can just shut up when I need to....