If only…

“Don’t look now, but something is TOUCHING me”

Ok.  Imma jump on the gratitude train.  because LORD KNOWS I can complain with the best of them. Its an art form, really.  BUt as I scrabble out of this FUNK I have been in, I figured it couldn’t hurt to list some gratefulness.

I Am Grateful…

1. That my son continues to grow and improve.  I try to live in the HERE AND NOW and not look too far in the future–BUT, at this rate, mainstream doesn’t seem like a far-fetched idea.

2.  Being at home.  Sure, finances are tight, but I can work from home and be here for the therapy he needs to help with #1.  And its taught me to value what I do have, and the spirit of resourcefulness.

3.  6 years of marriage come Monday.  He’s got his moments…

4.  a pound down. May not be much, but it’s something.

5.  Morning snuggles with this face:

What are you grateful for?

I haven’t really written anything in a while.  I mean, other than a few memes, I’ve really been absent.  Not even phoning it in.

Honestly?  completely and utterly overwhelmed.  By nothing in particular and everything in general.

I feel useless.  I feel fat.  I feel tired.  I feel uncreative.  I feel uninspired.  I feel like everything around me just keeps on moving and I’m stuck in a big bowl of pudding–and not a good flavor either.  Like pistachio or some shit.

(seriously–why is that even a flavor?)

well, lets find the trigger, shall we?

1)  Autism therapies will be covered by insurance staring July 1.  Which means everything that the Regional Center did will now be done by me and I think a girl at the agency who supplies our ABA therapist.  I don’t know what I’m doing.  SHE doesn’t know what we’re doing, our doctor had never HEARD of this and suddenly she has to write treatments and prescriptions,  and you can surely bet that  Anthem sure as hell don’t know what they’re doing other than keeping that bottom dollar firmly stapled down.  And I live in this constant fear that someone is gonna come look at my kid-who has improved by LEAPS AND BOUNDS due to this therapy, as have my own parenting and coping skills, and say that he doesn’t need it and take it away. And that I will have to fight AGAIN to get him something other than the sad services supplied by the over-extended school system, to whom sometimes I think Ben is just a body filling a seat and bringing in that per student $$.

It’s kind-of crippling, this fear.

2) Ben starts kinder in the fall.  And frankly the amount of paperwork and fucking medical information I have to give is setting me on edge.  It feels invasive.  And I’m not one who’s all private and secretive.  But I’m a little bothered by the PACKET of info I have to provide.  And–another honesty–when I go in, we will no doubt have to go through the questions and the confusion about his iep AGAIN, like the last time, and then I will be told about the program that I have already investigated AGAIN, and be introduced to the teacher, whom I met with for said investigation, AGAIN and I suppose I am tired of having to FUCKING EXPLAIN MYSELF and my son.  and I’m tired because I know this will HARDLY be the last time.  HARDLY.  And I’m wondering why they don’t have a special liaison to handle this instead of the school secretary who is not going to LISTEN to me but rather ASSUME (as she has done before) and then READ and say “oh”.  It’s exhausting, this ferris wheel.  exhausting.

In the grand scheme of things, I know I don’t have it bad.  I live in a beautiful home.  And with some budgeting and frugal living, I can stay home and work with Ben and his therapists as we bombard him with treatment. I am not alone in this, with a husband working hard to help Ben all he can, and to keep our marriage working and thriving.   I have a son who is on the higher functioning end of the spectrum, so I’m not dealing with half the shit with which some of my sistas-in-arms are dealing.  I am able to get some “me” time most days of the week.  For all this I am grateful.  GRATEFUL.

So then I feel like a heel when I sound like a whiny lil BITCH and “oh wah wah wah, I have to fill out forms and I have to deal with stupid people”

And I don’t want to write about it here–because that feels like the greatest exercise in narcissism, and I feel like an emo teen all over again with all these emotions threatening to overwhelm and no way to really express it without sounding like an ungrateful child.  So I don’t.  And then the blog goes dormant.  And then the only hits I’m getting are from spambots and their porn and prescription drug scams…

Yes, pills.  Yes exercise.  yes, spirituality.  YES YES YES. I know.  I do.

STILL.

why yes,this is EXACTLY what i look like when i sit around in my undies…

Sitting here, writing this, thinking about my feelings, I am realizing the last time I felt like this.  The year Barack Obama ran for President.  And the vitriol and the hate and the stupidity and the general malaise that IS an election year was hard.  I remember telling a friend how much I hoped he would win–but that it worried me, the amount of hatred that followed him. I remember looking at my friend, an African-American woman, and our boys–born about the same time, mine not yet diagnosed, and really worrying for her safety, and the world within which our boys were supposed to thrive.  Would they grow up and not even see one another’s skin color?  Would it even be an issue? And she was calm as rain, and just as soothing.  And she told me not to worry.  And I figured she was crazy, but that there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about that or the state of politics, and I let it go.  And Obama won.  And people are still crazy. And my kid likes all sorts of kids.

I need to stop watching Mad Men.  Because watching these women struggle, and those men have mid life crises, in an election year is seriously threatening my stability.  Even though i LURVE looking at all the couture syles ans it  HAS inspired me to make a custom fitted bra so that I can try to look as awesome as Christina Hendricks, with whom I share a similar bust size.

For which I am also, heavily grateful.

So–pardon the absence.  Pardon the whining.  Pardon the Morrisey quality of this post.  I hope to be back to my charming irreverent self sometime soon…