The Secret

I think I mentioned my friend Robert in my first post. He's the one with the incredibly positive attitude who's such a great guy. Well, he recommended a book to me called "The Secret". It's basically about the power of positive attraction; if you have negative thoughts, you attract more negative things into your life, and vice versa - if you have positive thoughts, you attract the positive.

I've never been one for self-help books. My attitude has always pretty much been "The gods help those who help themselves", and "Get up off your butt & do something... nobody's going to save your ass but you". So to believe that simply having the positive thoughts going will make your life better seems pretty simplistic & naive on the surface. I'm only about a third of the way into the book, but what I've been seeing reflected in real life is pretty darned amazing.

First, I really noticed this 'secret' in action in other people. Those people who I admire and respect; who seem to have it all together and seem genuinely happy most of the time really do have a positive attitude about things; even when things don't go their way. Those people who seem to have the world collapse in on them constantly are also the ones who are constantly bitching about how much life sucks & how unfair everything is to them. Coincidence?

Now, as to myself, I recently posted the bitch blog about dealing with the people from SSI. Shortly after this, I got a hold of the book, & decided to put this positive thinking more into practice - to really try to keep my thoughts positive & be the master of my own thoughts. Amazingly enough, my fears did not come into play, I did not have to hire an attorney, I still owe some back money, but not nearly the massive amount I originally thought, and the issue will be resolved once & for all & I don't have to deal with that agency & their incompetence & negativity again. I've put it behind me and moved on to the positive. I'm resolving the MediCal issue, the transition is going smoothly, and I'm sure it will all work out, too. So.... wow! Again, coincidence?

Sometimes it's not so easy to let go of the negative, though - especially when it comes in the shape of friends you've been friends with for years. I'd been friends with a person for over 20 years, or so I thought. This person was one of the negative ones - rarely did she ever call with anything positive, but if something horrid happened, she'd be looking me up. She did have an amazing amount of crappy things happen to her, and things just kept getting worse. I tried to be there for her through troubled times, but I don't think she really wanted my help or friendship - I think she was happy being unhappy. When she started drinking extremely heavily, I tried talking to her about it, and it almost killed the friendship right there. We remained peripheral friends after, until recently. She took offense to a Facebook topic and although I apologized if I offended her, tried to explain that what she read into it was not what I meant, it didn't matter - a few days later, she "unfriended" me on Facebook. Talk about shock & awe - what brought this on? How could she? My gods, over 20 years, did she not see how I'd been there for her through all the crap again & again, & now she drops me because of a post? I really worried about this for a while, till I put some serious thought into it. Maybe it was the law of attraction at work, helping me get rid of the negative in my life. What I thought of as a friendship was actually pretty one sided for a lot of those years - not all, but a lot. It made me question my judgment - how could I have been so blind and wasted all that time, etc - but it wasn't wasted time - it was, like most things in life, an opportunity for growth and learning, and I needed to learn, grow, and move on. Just because something is positive doesn't make it easy.

I then started thinking of all the truly wonderful people I have in my life, and realized these are the people who have been there for me, as I have for them. We rejoice in each others happiness & lend a hand when help is needed. We laugh and cry with each other; support and encourage each other. Positive really does attract positive. I'm so thankful for all the wonderful friends I have in my life, and I look forward to finishing the book & seeing what wonderfully positive things continue to manifest.


later the same evening

Just got a call confirming the boys MediCal will be continued with no interruption, and that if they have any questions when they re-authorize in January, they'll call us then. Good things all around!!!

Dating

I don't do it. Really. Why do people find it so hard to believe that I don't have a desire to date? I've been married once - gods, that was enough. If Prince Charming rang my doorbell tonight, I'd want to see a copy of his credit report and statements from his friends & exes, not to mention a note from his mother before letting him set a foot inside (I've discovered that most men who still have issues with their mothers at this age should be run away from, very quickly).

I'm a single mom, and have been for a long time. Hell, one could even say I was a single mom while I was married - or at least that I had another child. I've been doing it on my own for so long, I don't need someone to help me take care of things. And I'm ok with that. The big question is; why does no one else seem ok with that? It's usually my married friends who want to fix me up or tell me they know someone who would be great for me. Do they just want me to suffer, too? :-) I like the closet space, sleeping when I want to, and I've trained my boys to put the seat down.

All kidding aside, I just don't have time for it. I have 2 autistic teenage boys. They take up a LOT of time. They also come first. Anyone knows, relationships take up a lot of time. Also, people in relationships want to feel like they're the most important thing in the relationship, and I just don't have that to give. It wouldn't be fair to anyone.



Ok, I wrote those previous three paragraphs back in early September. Then I went to Sasha's Halloween Yoga extravaganza where Laurel did a card reading for me, and my whole world went crashing down. She had the gall to tell me I needed to let go of my bitterness & open up. Well hell! I was damn good about rationalizing my feelings away & not dealing with the crap that's built up. I was an expert. Nothing pisses me off more than someone seeing through me. Guess I have some work to do. :-)

So much for positive thinking...

Ok, it was a really sucky day & I just have to bitch, but I don't want to bitch on Facebook, because I'm really disgusted with everyone who bitches all the time & I don't want to be one of them. So I bitch on a blog - makes sense? Well, ever since my first post & I actually got one follower, I've failed to actually publish any of my following posts, so I guess it's still pretty un-public bitching. My one follower is so cool and a person I admire so much, I really hate to bitch to her. I'd rather do jello shots with her & just have a good time. I love her family, too, by the way. It's hard to bitch to people you actually like & enjoy spending time with. :-)

Ok, on to the bitching. I had my annual review for the boys' SSI today, phone interview. We have yet another new person on the case - seems like there's a new person every year. Anyway, early on, about 10 years ago, SSI kept losing my original documents, and when I gave them permission to get the documents electronically, they again lost the bloody documents. Ergo, I rescinded my permission for them to contact my financial institutions due to their incompetence and agreed to deliver all original documents to the office where I would wait for them to make copies and then take my originals home. Still not an ideal situation to me, but they were ok with it. Well, this new worker claims that 5 years ago, they made it required for me to give permission for them to get all documents electronically or else the kids would be denied their SSI claim. When I mentioned that if it happened 5 years ago, why have they let me keep doing it this way, and was told they'd made a lot of mistakes - including a past worker informing me it was ok for me to have an IRA for retirement. This new lady tells me it's only ok for me to have an IRA if it's through my employer; not if I got it on my own. I tell her look, I never would have gotten one if your worker hadn't told me it was ok. She says it doesn't matter, I need to give them all the info & give permission for them to get the documents electronically. I tell her I can't do that until I talk to my attorney. She says she'll stop the boys SSI if I don't. I tell her I'm willing to meet her on the date we picked with all documents, including the IRA documents, but I can't give permission until I talk to an attorney. She says it's pointless to keep the meeting because if I don't give permission, she's stopping the boys SSI.

Needless to say, my day was spent trying to contact referrals from my old educational attorneys for attorneys specializing in SSI & disability law, talking to Regional Center to see if my boys MediCal can be secured through RCOC without dealing with SSI (which is where they currently have their qualifications for MediCal through, and believe me, with the cost of Mikey's medications per month, I need the MediCal), trying to find out if I'll still qualify financially to be my kids IHSS provider, which is basically my whole and only source of income.

I really could care less if we continue with getting SSI at this point. Since my crappy ex is actually paying some child support at this point, and they take out $ from the SSI when this happens, it really doesn't make much difference in my income. If they stop SSI, we'll be ok financially... but my first concern is that Mikey continue to get his MediCal without interruption. My second concern is that I may be liable for paying back money I got from SSI because one of their employees who is no longer with them gave me bad advice, and that's a very real possibility, crappy though it is. I may end up paying a fortune to some attorney just to get justice, as I did to make the child support crap happen. Sigh.

You know, in the grand scheme of things, this isn't much. I don't have cancer, neither do my kids. Nobody is dying. Things could be a hell of a lot worse. But this strange sense of justice I have rails at the injustice of it all! Nobody ever told me life was fair, yet somehow I have this warped sense that it should be, and my blood pressure boils over at the unfairness when I work so hard at trying to make things work when other people I know take advantage of the system & get to skate by. Like I don't have enough to deal with, being a single mom with 2 autistic kids. I wonder what the hell did I do in my past life to have life crap on me so stupendously? Was I Atila the Hun? Perhaps a Spanish Inquisitor? Enough already!