Here it is again! What I *want* to say is so different from what I think I *should* say

Somebody posts that they're depressed (well, they don't say that, but that's the conclusion other people came to, so let's run with that), and, on top of it, they feel really guilty for questioning God and they think they're losing their faith and maybe all this bad stuff and depression is a punishment, so they feel even worse....

Now, I do believe that the guilt is the first thing, and the fact that it's tied to religion is the second. But the advice I really *want* to give is that if your religious beliefs are making you feel bad instead of good, you ought to ditch them instead of trying to hang on to them! (Especially if talking about your crisis of faith with your religious leaders nets you a lecture on Satan. Ye Gods, that's totally helpful. Uh-huh.)

Except I'm thinking that won't go over well.

It's good advice, but what's the point when I already have a good idea that it won't be heard and may only make her more upset than she is right now?

Is this how other people live their lives? Thinking before they speak instead of after? It's preventing me from saying a lot of stuff I want to say, but it might be better...? I don't know. I just don't know.

I need to wait a few weeks, try this out, see how it goes.

Ana's taking the test for gifted kindergarten right now.

Jenn's post is here.

I hope it goes well - she has a tendency to freeze up when she thinks things aren't totally easy. Also, she likes to play "the silly game" - it's the only way to get her to participate at all sometimes, but it can be a little frustrating!

Well, she did well on the practice test, and was surprised at the end to realize that it was both fun and really easy (at first, she refused to even look at the questions, and would pick an answer at random and *then* try to figure out why it was right, rather than picking the right one to start), so this should go well. I tell you, it's very hard to encourage a child to do well, and to emphasize that she must not be silly while simultaneously trying to convince her that it's really unimportant and not a big deal at all. Party line around here has been "You're going to have a lot of fun this weekend, right?" and similar. One can only hope the results are accurate, anyway.

The only thing about this test is she's missing her gymnastics class. From how Jenn has described it, it's not a competitive, olympic-style gymnastics class, more like a circus style gymnastics class. Ana refuses to tell me what she does there (on the grounds that it's her class, not mine!), but she's clearly having a lot of fun. Apparently, her teacher thinks she's really strong (well, we knew that) and pretty gifted in that way (we knew that too) and that Jenn should look into private lessons when she gets older, though her talent will keep, of course.

Edit: Apparently, she came out from the test all bouncy and bubbly, which is a good sign, and she said that the questions were easy, which is a *really* good sign. She was a little disappointed that she missed gymnastics, and a little disappointed that she'd been told by the 'teacher' that she'd play some games, but that's not what happened, it didn't seem like games to her.