Progress...Not Perfection

So this week there has been a lot of progress, but not perfection. This is good. After all its a journey, right? I made my name it claim it list and I took action on a great deal of it. I called the three people I am on the phone with the most and told them that I am no longer going to talk on the cell phone when I have Jem in the car with me. I want to have another speech breathrough with him and at this moment I can not afford the B-12 shots, but I can afford to speak to him at every available moment.

Since then I have not talked on the phone with him in the car and we have had great talks both in an out of the car. Today we went to 4 grocery stores - my reality - and we had the very best day. We laughed and talked and it wasn't a struggle, we waited in line and he wasn't perfect, but there was progress.

At one point we were in Trader Joes and I saw a young mom walking out with her 4 year old daughter who was chattering away - and the thought rose up - How come she gets a normal child - which my head answered -Because she couldn't handle what you got. And then it was like I heard a voice in my head say, "God only gives you what you can handle, so he must have great faith in you." And I realized in that moment that Jem's autism is gift to all of us, but especially me. It has caused me to be strong, it has helped me to define my role as a mother, and truly God must count me as very special to have trusted this remarkable little life to me. I am so lucky, so blessed. And Jem is lucky to have me too. This is so much more rewarding than the victim mentality I sometimes get trapped in. Real progress

I have remembered to be loving at least once a day to my husband, which is pathetic - but progress. And I charged what a job was worth the other day - okay that's not 100% true - I charged $150 more for it than I had planned to - because I constantly feel like I should give my work away. But I charged it, the client kind of did a double take but wrote the check and told me how worth it the money was - Talk about progress!

I called Tova and will start my diet program tomorrow - I will talk to her every day and do writing about my food issues every day.

I watched Oprah last night - I had DVR'd the show with the organizational expert. It was painful to watch. It is all stuff that I believe, living it is somewhat harder. I have been trying for the last year to reduce our clutter and there has been progress. But last night I felt that it was urgent to attack the kitchen and the bedroom. I did - the bedroom got done first. I have to admit that it wasn't hard to do because I had just done it before Christmas. But it had gotten quite bad while Jem was sick the last 3 weeks. Then I attacked the kitchen - it is not done, but progress was made. There is that one corner that no matter what I do it is always a mess. I had it totally clean before Christmas and it looked like a paper factory exploded.

As I was cleaning it up, I was talking to myself about why that corner cannot stay clean. I realized that it is the corner that symbolizes my lose of control of my life. It is where the therapist keep all of the files and books for Jem's case. So in a large sense, I really don't have control of that area of the counter. I have five people taking the stuff out and putting it back, and sometimes they don't get it put away properly. In a larger sense it reprents my entire loss of control of my life because of autism. I have strangers coming into my house and moving my stuff around, sometimes reducing my child to tears, while I am trapped in the office listening and trying to eek out a living.

My resentment for that corner was so clear to me as I cleaned. I kept thinking that it sucked that I had to have this ugly file system on my counter shouting to the world - Look, we don't get to lead a normal life.

So I decided to move the files off the counter, I moved some stuff around and put them underneath the counter. I stepped back to admire my handy work, expecting to be pleased, but I wasn't. It didn't look right. And I realized that resentment or no - this is my life and I don't want to hide it under the counter. This is what we have chosen as a family - to work our asses off to give Jem every chance. The files deserve to be out where everyone can see that our life is NOT normal, it's extraordinary. In that moment I realized that I had been taking my anger and frustration out on the files, but the truth of the matter is the files are what is right with my world, they and the stranger therapists (most of whom are far from being strangers anymore) are what is saving my son.

I looked at the files with new eyes, the eyes of gratitude. I thought of what the clutter expert on Oprah had said about giving the proper respect to things that deserve them. Those files deserve more respect than anything else in my home. Somehow I don't think it will be a problem to keep that corner clean anymore. Progress.