Dilemma

I won't talk about my foster kids much - primarily for confidentiality purposes, but also because I don't want to chance another issue like my old blog - but since I'm still in regular contact with my foster daughter, she will come up from time to time.  This is one of those times.  For simplicity's sake (and to give as little detail about her as possible), let's just call her The Girl. 

I'll also give a quick bit about a friend of mine who we'll call Professor Wordsmith.  I'll do a proper introduction to Wordy here soon, but for now just know that we met on a blind date and although it didn't turn into a romantic relationship, we've become very close friends and I love him in that he's-an-amazing-person-and-I-would-do-anything-I-could-to-make-sure-he-has-only-good-things-in-his-life kind of way.  Unfortunately, he has a lot of bad things in his life.  Wordy grew up in the foster system (probably part of the reason we've connected, since it's so incredible for both of us to get to see fostering from the other perspective) and has no family to speak of.  He has some behavioral health issues (we'll go into this more later) and very few people in his life who are able to handle the ups and downs of his disorder.

Yesterday I was scheduled to visit The Girl and take her on a pass from the residential facility where she currently lives.  I was taking Wolfey with me and we were going to go to a park nearby to take a walk and play outside for a while.  I knew Wordy was having a rough day and had told him I would be available until 3:30 and that he should call if he needed anything.  I was about a half hour from my house when Wordy texted me and said "I think I need a safe place to be."  Talk about scary.  I called him right away to see what was going on and he filled me in on the situation, saying that he'd like to take me up on my previous offer to come out to my house if he felt like he needed to get away.  Unfortunately I wasn't there.  So I had a decision to make - disappoint The Girl or leave Professor Wordsmith in a potentially dangerous (emotionally, not physically) situation.  Since I knew The Girl was safe and surrounded by people who could help her through her disappointment, I opted to go help Wordy.  I called my sister (who you'll meet soon) and asked her to meet me to get Wolfey and take him to my parents' house (you'll meet them soon, too) then headed to pick up Professor Wordsmith.  We spent the day together, processing what happened, dealing with the resulting anxiety attack and talking about how we got to where we are in life and what we need to do to get what we want out of life.  It was an incredibly long day filled with feelings of inadequecy because of letting The Girl down, fear and worry over Wordy's situation and far too much driving, but in the end it was a day filled with love and the good feeling of being able to help someone in need.  Sometimes I feel like I can't do it all, but days like this remind me that I'm so lucky to have the strength, stability and resources to help the people I love.