Jessie Flips About: Caitlin My Connector

Hey fellow bloggers, I’m so exited to update all of you on the meeting that Caitlin (my “connector” from LiveWorkPlay) and I had at Bridgehead coffee shop after I had my dance rehearsal in Hintonburg last Tuesday.

Caitlin, Jessie's connector, from LiveWorkPlay & Jessie

Caitlin and I discussed and talked about what my goals were for the next year. I told her that I was thinking of moving out in the middle or the end of next year. I had also told her that another goal of mine was to find a paid part-time job. I’m really happy and thrilled that my life is getting started because I want to live more independently. And I want to live with friends in a supported living setting where people would come in once a month and help us with budgeting, cooking, grocery shopping and the basics of independent living skills. Caitlin and I talked about that for a long time and it was really fun.  

LWP Is PDG

Today was our appointment with Allison from LiveWorkPlay. This is Jessie’s Takeover (I wrote “take on it” but she changed it, fittingly, to “takeover.”)

Today at 1:00 in the afternoon, I had a meeting with Live Work Play’s Allison Moores. Allison talked a little bit about what LiveWorkPlay is and then we moved on and talked about my goals and dreams for my life now and for my future. My main goal and dream that we had talked about was moving out into a supported living setting where I would live with my friends.  And through that she had told my mom and I about how Live Work Play would help me and my family to help carry out the supports to help me achieve that goal. It was really fun and I really loved it. I’m finally really excited about what’s happening.

So. We get to move forward with a bit more support. A chance for me to back off and for a mentor/advisor/person to step in and work a couple of hours a week with Jessie, setting goals based on her dreams and helping her find the supports and strategies to be able to move forward. That means its someone else who gets to help her delve into the world of making choices, setting goals, and following through. That’s a big sigh of relief (for me) and a huge vibrating grin (for Jessie).

Relief for me, because I feel like a load is being shared, and while Jessie has a good rich and active life right now, there are areas that need to be explored further (education, career, a home) and I’m just not the right person to direct and drive it.

A huge vibrating grin for Jessie, because she gets to share her vision with someone who won’t roll their eyes when she sets her long-term living goals as moving to California with her boyfriend so he can pursue his wrestling star dream and she her acting dream. Someone, she likes to say, who is her personal assistant. Well, we’ll see how that works.

But, we have all agreed that the goal will be moving out (target=before she’s 25) and that the focus will be on all those things that will help her achieve that goal (anything from organizational skills and meeting and talking with people who have moved out and are living with friends or on their own, to researching areas in the city to live and budgeting).

We will meet again next week and Allison will bring Lisa, the person who will be supporting Jessie. In the meantime, we fill out forms, brainstorm more ideas and questions, and step back for a moment to breath and give thanks.

So. LWP (LiveWorkPlay) is PDG (prettydamnedgood). It is a work in progress, but with LWP I’m feeling a bit more hopeful about the progress!        

A New Mantra

In my question for spiritual balance while raising a child with very typical needs (that do, sometimes, have to be met in special ways), I have employed numerous disciplines and practices, many of which I am not too proud of, so won’t share publicly.

Others—such as a daily meditation practice, going to church with people I love, and drinking copious amounts of very dark coffee—I would highly recommend. On good and deep days, they help me see God’s blessings in each moment; on bad and fraught-with-struggle days they re-centre me and even offer a chance to begin anew. Or at least stop me from running too far away from home.

My daily meditation practice, for example, has taught me the value of a mantra. A mantra is, according to Oxford (because I only ever use Oxford) “1. a word or sound repeated to aid concentration in meditation. 2. a Vedic hymn. 3. a frequently repeated word, phrase, etc; a slogan. And in thinking about the mantra, I realized that I use two kinds: a spiritual mantra (which has remained the same over the years and is an Aramaic phrase—Maranatha—which means Come Lord Jesus and sometimes, when I’m particularly in need, Come Quick, Come Quick, Like Now Lord Jesus), and what I have come to call a parental mantra (which has changed with every new developmental milestone or challenge).

When Jess was little, my mantra was “Good job!” always praising the action, not the child (that, I think, defines a certain generation of parents). Our days were filled with litanies of “Good . . . . washing your hands . . . listening . . . waiting for your turn . . .  signing . . .  sitting on the potty . . .

When she was in elementary school, she seemed to need a lot of encouragement not to give up on difficult tasks, so my mantra was: “You can do it!” Or, in many social situations where she would impulsively disrupt an activity for attention (also sometimes called hitting) it was “Stop and think.”

In high school, the mantra was used to avoid power struggles, but instill responsibility and self-determination (i.e., it’s your job honey). It involved “yes …. when . . .” conditional sentences. Such as:

Yes, you can go to the movie . . . when you have finished cleaning your room.

Yes, you can drive a car . . . when you get your license.

Yes, you can go to the dance intensive in Seattle . . . . when you save enough money to get there.

Yes, you can get a guitar . . . when you research which one would be best for you and save enough money for it.

Yes, you can go on tour with the Jonas Brothers when they invite you.

Yes, you and DB can get married when . . .

However, this doesn’t quite cut it these days, as Jessie is still liable to struggle and rebel against the limits that don’t allow for instant gratification, and targets her ire at me, the bearer of conditional caveats. Ah yes, “mother/dream-killer” is the flip side of the “mother/maker-of-miracles” coin.

I was discussing this challenge with our minister Christine one day over coffee (she happens to have twins the same age as Jessie who have moved out into their own apartment), and she offered me the best advice I have had in a long time. It was about letting go and loving. Okay. It was about pretending to let go and love so you don’t drive yourself, and your children, crazy. I guess these are things you learn when you study theology.

Anyways, she said that as parents of young adults we have to accept that for a number of years the only phrase we should ever utter is “Good for you!” Any other fantasy that we might have about guiding or mentoring our offspring at this point in their lives was best left in the closet, to be dusted off, perhaps, when they had their own children.

Hmmm. Sounded like the new mantra I was looking for! Simple. Positive. And very realistic. Might even unhook me from thinking that I was supposed to teach Jessie how life works.  

So I’ve been trying it on for size:

Mom, me and DB are going to start a band. Good for you!

Mom, I want to convert to Judaism. Good for you!

I was thinking I could write myself into a Glee episode. Good for you!

I want to make sushi tonight. Good for you!

I’m going to go to Halifax and live with Rachel. Good for you!

I thought we could convert the basement to a sound studio and could make an apartment down there with my own entrance. Good for you!

See what I mean? It works, doesn’t it!

And I’ve gotten a bit creative with it too, because I don’t actually want her to KNOW it’s a mantra.

Mom. I want to move out.

Good for you.

I think I want to live with Country Girl and Lyrics Lady.

Good for you!

I’m thinking maybe in January.

Good stuff. 

(See how I varied it up a bit so she wouldn’t realize that it was a mantra? And besides, she changed it from an original plan to move out in December, so I wanted to praise her more realistic time frame).

Christine was right, and I, at least for now, am at peace.

HomeShare

Jessie generates goals faster than her bedroom floor collects discarded clothes. Her newest goal (as if learning to cook, to clean the bathrooms, and developing a speaking/advocacy sideline were not enough) is to move out by Christmas. (See text message.)

At one point, as I was trolling the internet (because I have nothing better to do) I googled housing supports and options and saw a description of a home-share program. Common in many cities, this is where a person with a disability, once they feel they want to move away from their parents, can go and share a home with another family/couple/person. In order to qualify as a home-share partner (i.e., a person who has someone with a disability live with you in your home), you have to NOT be employed so that any job requirements don’t conflict with the time and energy you are supposed to spend on supporting the individual living with you. In addition, you get paid for it.

I had to read it twice, just to be sure: If you have a young adult with a disability, you have to pay a lot of money for services (because there aren’t enough to go around and meet people’s needs), plus you have to lose money because you can’t really keep your job because you have to teach and facilitate a good life for your son or daughter. But if you don’t have a young adult with a disability and you want one living with you, you have to agree to NOT work outside the home, PLUS you get paid. Hmmmm. What’s wrong with this equation?

Being ever hopeful, I thought of a solution.

I quickly called my friend Claire. “Claire, Claire!” I said. “If we all sign up to be home-share partners, we can all just trade children. We won’t have to try to balance work and teaching/managing our children’s lives, AND we’ll get paid for it!”

Claire wasn’t so sure. She thought that it would be the one time that the government paid attention to what was happening with our children’s lives. She could be right.