LooLoo

Loo's Daily Affirmations
2002-03-07 16:53:06 (UTC)

you have your good days, you have your bad days...

Well, with all of my success/will power with the diet, and
not smoking, I thought I would tackle at least one of a few
major screw-ups that I have made, but not fixed.

I am a horrible procrastinator. Really horrible. I put
something off until it is too late, then I don't want to
face the consequences of not doing it on time, so I just
don't face it/fix it at all. This has been the situation
with my taxes. CLARIFYING STATEMENT: I have been paying
taxes through payroll deduction since I turned 18. I have
never stopped paying income tax. The problem is that I
haven't FILED since 1996. Yes, I know it is a long time.
Yes, I know it would have been better to just get off my
ass before now and do it. But I didn't. And I was once told
that there were stiff fines for not filing. That scared me,
so I just never did file.

Well, I decided Monday that I was going to just take care
of this once and for all. That I wasn't going to have that
hidden weight gone until I did something about it. So, I
called the IRS help line and got a wonderful operator, who
was so helpful. Turns out that I will not owe any fine
unless I owe money (which I never had before, and everyone
I work with has same claims/income as me & get refunds
every year). AND, if I am owed refunds from 1998 on, I can
still get them if I file all my returns by April 15. She
did mention that I have some sort of earned interest that
was reported from 1997 (something with my mom's name
attached) That worries me, because if I did not overpay
enough on my withholding, then I could owe for that year
(thus a penalty). But, regardless, this will be taken care
of and I won't always feel like the IRS police are about to
track me down.

So I called my mom and carefully revealed this whole
situation, noting that I am taking care of it. She, of
course, lost her mind. Started yelling at me over the phone
about how I always lie (hello, I just told you about it, so
how am I always lying?) and how she KNEW I hadn't been
filing (well, you must not have known too much or you would
have had this really loud panic attack then, now wouldn't
you?)and I am the most irresponsible person my age she
knows (weren't you the person telling me about the
neighbor's kid who is like 34 and still listed as a
dependant under her parents?) So, anyway, I thought to
myself, ok you really were irresponsible, and you know how
mom is, so just let her go off for a minute now. When she
paused to breathe, I calmly told her that yes it was
irresponsible, that i was aware of that and that I was
taking care of it. I had to go and so did she, so I thoguht
everything was settled. Boy, was I wrong.

I called her that evening to ask about a television show
that was on and she immediately said "you need to talk to
you father" I asked why and she merely said "You just do.
Here he is" Please keep in mind that my parents are
recently reunited after 6 years of divorce. They are BARELY
back together, and I think to increase normalcy they try to
portray this "family/parental" image that hasn't existed in
those whole 6 years and even BEFORE the divorce. Part of
this whole facade is to make me feel like/treat me like
the "baby" even though I am 31 years old.

So my Dad gets on the phone and immediately says "So what
is this about you not paying your taxes?" Well, I lost it.
I mean really lost it. I was screaming and crying and
sniffling all at the same time. I told him I couldn't talk
because i was too angry to be rational. After about 10
calls from them that night, they finally left me alone. I
think they thought I was having a breakdown. And in some
ways i was.

I think in between all the calls with my mom, I finally got
across, that when I told her about this, I acknowledged
that I had F**ked up. I wasn't saying, hey, look at me, I
am great because I am filing my taxes. I was just saying,
hey, I have done this wrong and am fixing it. i wasn't
lying and I sure as hell wasn't asking them for any help
with it. And the last LAST LAST thing I needed was them
telling me again what a fuck-up I was. To top it all off,
the last straw, was that obviously, when dad got to mom's
for dinner, she had to have said, "Oh, and here is what L
has done now... what are we going to do with her"

We *made up* enough that we are talking and ok, but I am
going to have to sit down and talk to each of them. They
need to understand that their need for some sort of
parental normalcy is not going to affect the way I have
interacted with them for the past 6 years. And if they
really wanna keep after the tax thing, they can take not of
the fact that the first year I didn't file was the same
year Dad left mom for the in-the-closet lesbian. Maybe I
should point that out to them anyway.

Bet it would take attention away from me.

In the meantime, my mom is trying to make up wayyyy too
hard. I am trying to keep my comnversations short so I
don't have a chance to get angry again, but every time I
say I need to go, she starts jabbering like I am a deathrow
inmate on my way to the chair. Like we may never see one
another again & she has, absolutely HAS to tell me what
Rachel's petunias are doing in the greenhouse. Sheesh.

Anyway, according to my mid-week weigh in, 3 more lbs. Yay!!

Maybe more tomorrow.
Maybe not.




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