December 16, 2010

Sunday, Wednesday and tonight I spent considerable time with a child. It makes me appreciate SO much that I don’t have one.

He likes me, though, and I like him. Regardless I’m not set up for it in my living space or psychologically. It gives me new understanding why other people who use personal assistance have worked hard to create a particular type of support to help them raise children. Without that it’s a real challenge to get the kid to keep his sticky fingers off the keyboard while his incompatible “educational” game is threatening to melt down my operating system.

It seems like I have spent a lot of time and energy lately trying to reassert control – “my boundaries” as they say now. I noticed recently that I have greatly increased my patrolling – frequent trips through the apartment to ensure that things have been put away where they belong, room has been left on the floor to permit free passage of my wheelchair, Peter’s stuff is in Peter’s spaces, table tops are cleared of things whose purpose is incompatible with the function of the table – even regularly counting what’s left of the eggs, toilet paper rolls, tissue boxes, etc. In such ways I have become my Mother.

Part of this is because with Peter here, four other personal assistants coming weekly, a great deal of WPIT and Laser Eagles planning going on in the space and now intentionally offering hospitality to neighbours – including an eleven year old boy – everyone’s needs for safety, storage, secure work space, etc. must be met. Those needs may exist for an hour or for months. Once again, I have gotten fairly good at understanding and accommodating the requirements of my assistants. Adding a housemate and a half-a-dozen neighbours created a different dynamic that invites stress and chaos.

Another factor behind my increased control freakiness belongs squarely to the “Third Cycle”. Since it’s clear that I will live and I have a passion to get back in the game of inclusion, I must vastly increase my resources. I have about a $15,000/year shortfall in paying my personal assistants. I have large living costs. Lots of things cost double because of been accompanied – bus fare, meals, hotel rooms, rent. Most importantly the research and project development needs for WPIT will be/are significant.

I used to be very good at making money, especially when Marsha was around to remind me to keep at it and to promote me. Then I got slack. As the end of Cycle 2 crept up on me I grew content to live the life of a very poor person,

But Cycle 3 is now very much underway and I must leave the ODSP world soon – perhaps February. My intentions are set on a functioning Judith Snow/World Peace through Inclusion Foundation with assets not less than $6 million by the end of 2011!

I am learning again how to make money. I am getting coaching. I am seeing how I got stuck in lots of side tracks, from not wanting to lose my connection with vulnerable people to enjoying hanging out with the stories of how hard it is and in enjoying too much the dreaming of what we could do next.

What works is to take the action that reliably brings in the money. I set a goal of making $500 a day, five days a week. Yesterday I made $550. Today I made $100. Tomorrow I will make $500.