Of course when you have something dificult to tell someone you love, it's wonderful when you can say it not only well but un-hurtfully. In my coimmitted realtiuonships, I think sometimes I have done this best by MAKING myself wait until I can say it so that ther will be no harm. In some cases, years have passed while I waited to grow in grace to be able to say it for their good, not to serve myself. The silence has been the most loving response I could make under what have sometimes been really awful circumstances. when I finally did speak, the hurt I had felt had become detachment and all that was left was a friendly concern for the growth of the other.

Waiting for that moment is very very hard. In this instant-speak e-place, I forgot that principle and others I hold very high, completely. Just lost it entirely. I got so hooked by something that hurt so bad, and was only old business, that I went somewhere I wasn't ready (and others weren't either) to go. Oh I was honest. I was so honest I made no sense. Not sense the way I felt I was making it, at least.

In the most committed (human) relationship of my life, I am blessed that my "other" and I have never been so hooked at the same time that we just have no detachment left on either side and thus argue or 'fess or spew ourselves into a hole we can't find our way out of. One of us always seems to have the breadcrumbs to lay a path. Maybe the fact I'm here at the 'Cat today means there are other places that can be like that too. I don't know.

Here's a metaphor. I ate way too much chocolate yesterday and got gas. I joked with my step daughter that I had carbonated my ass and gotten me a case of the bubble butt. (This is true, and it was a gritty old bluesman's voice I used!) Thus led to the realization that Praise may not be the only accurate name for me here; I may from time to time be somebody called Sparkling A**hole. I just have to hope that it tickles, I guess.

Patrish-- I would like to address what you *said* to Kat. Here or personal page, if OK with you.