Don’t tell me

On Saturday, I asked dau if they decided what they were going to do, and I was so hoping they would stay and go to this thing with me. Then I said, no, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. She proceeded to tell me, because, I asked. She told bf she wasn’t going to tell me, but because I asked, she told me. She didn’t hear me say, no don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. And I really did say that. She didn’t hear me say it because she wanted so badly to tell me. So then I am left knowing this and having to go do stuff with these people knowing what I know and I am not supposed to know. I hate that.

But I put her in a bad situation by asking her to back out of her plans with bf. She had to choose between her mom and her bf. That was not fair to her. So, then it was not fair for me to know what I knew and have to act like I didn’t know. So I hated it. I told her on the phone that I would prefer not to know those things, and next time don’t tell me.

I also said to myself that I would not put her in that position again of having to choose between me and bf.

It just was so painfully obvious to me this weekend how selfish I am.

It started out when hub and I wanted to do something and we really should have taken his mom and dad with us to something, but instead we made his brother come get them. He had 3 brothers there, and they all had stuff going on, deadlines, kids games, you name it… but we wanted to go see hub’s friends and so we made one of them drop everything and go get them. I was mad at hub for that. He felt they should do it cuz we did a lot of the other running around and went 100 miles out of our way just to pick them up and bring them with us. But I felt like it was mom and dad we were putting out, not his brothers. It all went OK, but I would have preferred to just take mom and dad myself so they wouldn’t have had such a hard day. The one brother insisted they come to his kid’s game, which made it nearly impossible to get to the next thing on time, plus he couldn’t take them becuase he had another thing right after that… and he is overcommitted even more than hub cuz his wife is more overcommitted than he is and they are nuts. Hub and I wanted to get to this thing the other brothers and we were going to on time too and so we decided to be selfish. Hub never thought of it as selfish, I don’t think, but I did. And I told him so. The brother whose kids game he insisted mom and dad go to is selfish in a different way. He is offended if you are not interested in what HIS kids are doing. By the same token, if I brag on my kids, he belittles it and practically makes fun.

The other day I was suprised to hear him say, “why should we save for college when our kids will just get scholarships that will pay for all of it?” This in response to our oldest having so much scholarship money that she gets a check after all her schooling, room, board, books, you name it has been paid for.

But I thought to myself, after this brother said that about the scholarships… hmmm… if he thinks it is that easy to just get scholarships, dream on. My kids worked hard and they were blessed to be very smart and talented to start with. His kids are pretty smart, might be talented, but are spoiled. I have no idea what they will be like when it counts. I guess he can do what he likes, but he has always said things like that about our kids’ accomplishments, like that is nothing special… his kids will do the same. It would be nice, but I don’t know if he realizes how accomplished my kids really are.

Our son will have full tuition waiver to the university he wants to go to becuase of his ACT scores. We hope he gets something else he is going for, but he is not in the top 10% of his class. Dau was valedictorian, son is not that organized. Dau had colleges begging her to come and offering money for her music and she already had all this money for academics! Her professors in the music dept shake their heads. They don’t understand why she chooses academics instead. She has been told she has the choice to be a professional musician, just like that. He said, do you realize what I am telling you? Other ppl work all their lives and can’t make it happen. You can just choose and its yours!

So anyway…

I need to let go of my hero, be unselfish and forgive. It is going to work out.

faith hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.