at home, on fire

Oct. 15, 2007

what goes around ...

If this blog were a twelve-step program, I would introduce myself this way:

Hi. My name is Kristina and I am a gossip. So, really, don't tell me anything.

The chuch we have been attending for the last month or so has a fantastic thing going on every Thursday night, for 40 weeks (hmmm ... significance in 40 weeks?). It is called Celebrate Recovery and is based on the traditional twelve step program that has been proven successful. My problem is not in admitting that I could certainly use some help "recovering", but, rather, in which group to join.

Do I sign up for the addictions group, since I love a good story as much as the next girl and am especially gifted, I find, in the art of exagguration?

Or, would I better fit as a co-dependant? I clearly have not mastered the practice of stopping a fellow gossiper dead in her tracks or I would have nothing to gossip about. Talking about myself is not gossip ... it is boring conversation, no matter how much bestsister laughs.

Well, this morning, at our homeschool co-op group, I was talking to a friend about how sad she must have been when she had to recently put her bulldog down. I told her how I cried like a baby when we had to "get rid of" our dog. She politely asked me some details, which I proceeded to tell her, when she started to get a funny look on her face. I stopped talking long enough for her to say "Kristina, I have to tell you that I have already heard this story and it was not said in a nice way at all." Seems there is someone in our wee town that just doesn't like to say kind things about me and mine, and the stone that I rolled (in other ways) has rolled back on me.

I am still resigned to confront this other person as our family does know them, but it makes a good point.

Perhaps I can join the addictions group first, and when that 40 weeks is done, I can roll on into the co-dependant group. I should like to think that I will have learned my lesson by then ...