April 15, 2004
Tax Day 2004
I loathe tax day. Partly because I'm in the wrong line of work, partly because, well, doesn't everyone? I'm not myself anyway, I don't know who I am, but I'm off lately, haven't been well for several days, my spectacular crash of last week, while past and done with, created a lag in the space-time continuum (that describes it as well as anything else I can come up with). I've felt sick, I've had a change of meds, I've been weak and dizzy and exhausted, yet I feel emotionally strong. If befuddled. Definitely befuddled. Overwhelmed at times, definitely overwhelmed.
And it's tax season. Yay. I am, of course, behind on all the tax work, and since I refuse to do taxes myself this comes as no surprise to me. I am at work early, though not necessarily productive. Extensions, last-minute things, payrolls, and I just did not feel well.
He came over about mid-morning, he and the dog. She stayed with him last night because I wanted to try to get some sleep. I haven't been sleeping the best, and I thought it would help if she weren't waking me up at odd hours of the night. Not that it seems to have mattered . . .
I'm scattered today, doing too many things at once, just wanting to get things in the mail so I can move on to the next project. He wants to help, and the help I need is just to be here -- the first three hours of the day I worked in solitude, and sometimes I could do with a bit less of that. I love working for myself, but sometimes there is a lot of solitude. Especially since I've trained the clients not to bother me with phone calls.
And I'm not doing the best, but I'm working on it and holding up.
He does not. What happens has nothing to do with me, it's an external stimulator, but I won't go into that here. And he breaks down. I tell him it'll be okay, and when he goes to leave to go back to his place he gets worse. I tell him to stay, to sit down, that I'll be done soon and we can get out for a bit. I know what's wrong, but there's no fix for it. He thinks it's silly, but I tell him he can tell me anything because nothing is really all that silly. And it isn't. It never is, really. Irrational, maybe, but not silly.
I'm still incredibly stressed.
I finish what I have, I make a couple of calls, I need to get out of the house for a bit. We leave to go to the post office and Kinko's, and to drop off a tax return at a client's, a tax return that did not come to me in the mail from my tax preparer on time so she had to fax it to me this morning.
And I feel like crap, I really do. I wonder if I have the flu. Dengue fever.
Malaria. Entropy. Something.
We go. He drives. I know what's wrong, and I can't fix it, I can only tell him that there is nothing wrong with his feelings because there isn't anything wrong with his feelings. I emphathize, for all the good that does.
We drop off the mail, we make the copies, we head towards the client's. He loses it in traffic, becoming angry and impatient, frustrated. And it concerns me, of course it does, and I begin to feel the familiar note of hopelessness rise within me.
So I tell him we'll drop off the tax return at the client's, then we'll get some clam chowder at the waterfront. When in doubt, call on food.
Lunch does not appear to be going well. He's morose, sad, angry, very angry, though he can't define it or say why. He's ready to explode at any time. And he breaks down at the table. He takes his knife, it's only a butter knife, but he takes his knife and he presses the blade against his arm, and I know he can't hurt himself that way and he won't, but I make him give me the knife anyway, and he does, and then he breaks down. I ask if he's okay, or if he needs to leave, and he says he's okay. He goes to the restroom to beat up on things.
When he comes back he says he's okay. And he takes some of the focaccia from the basket and squeezes it tightly in his hand and then gobbles it down. And he does it again. And I laugh. He puts pepper in his Pepsi. He puts his bread in his Pepsi, then eats it. When he eats his quesadilla (shrimp, we are at a seafood place after all) the cheese falls down the front of his shirt and he cleans it off by putting his jacket into his mouth. I can't help laughing. The jacket is subjected to this abuse several times. I take the ketchup away from him once, unsure what he's going to do with it, but certain it won't be a good thing. Indeed, he had planned on putting it into his Pepsi to see how that would taste.
"You're back, aren't you?" I ask him, unsure if he is or not.
"I'm having a psychotic break," he announces, and his behavior would seem to indicate some sort of psychotic episode. But all in all, it's better than he was, it's life of an eccentric sort but it's life.
"Are you laughing at me?" he asks, and of course I am, but I'm laughing because he's THERE, because the anger has been released and because he is THERE, and I don't care if the other patrons are finding anything about us odd or not, it doesn't matter.
He's there, back from the precipice. We eat dark chocolate cake with ice cream for dessert, so dense I can only eat a few bites. And when we leave the restaurant I yell out "Tax Day 2004!" I don't know why. I'm just wanting it to be over, another tax day survived.
I've felt better. I plan on feeling better again soon. I planned on it today. I'll plan on it for tomorrow. Until then, I'll just continue to do what I've been doing. Keeping my distance from the precipice, and helping him keep his distance as well.
I loathe tax day. Partly because I'm in the wrong line of work, partly because, well, doesn't everyone? I'm not myself anyway, I don't know who I am, but I'm off lately, haven't been well for several days, my spectacular crash of last week, while past and done with, created a lag in the space-time continuum (that describes it as well as anything else I can come up with). I've felt sick, I've had a change of meds, I've been weak and dizzy and exhausted, yet I feel emotionally strong. If befuddled. Definitely befuddled. Overwhelmed at times, definitely overwhelmed.
And it's tax season. Yay. I am, of course, behind on all the tax work, and since I refuse to do taxes myself this comes as no surprise to me. I am at work early, though not necessarily productive. Extensions, last-minute things, payrolls, and I just did not feel well.
He came over about mid-morning, he and the dog. She stayed with him last night because I wanted to try to get some sleep. I haven't been sleeping the best, and I thought it would help if she weren't waking me up at odd hours of the night. Not that it seems to have mattered . . .
I'm scattered today, doing too many things at once, just wanting to get things in the mail so I can move on to the next project. He wants to help, and the help I need is just to be here -- the first three hours of the day I worked in solitude, and sometimes I could do with a bit less of that. I love working for myself, but sometimes there is a lot of solitude. Especially since I've trained the clients not to bother me with phone calls.
And I'm not doing the best, but I'm working on it and holding up.
He does not. What happens has nothing to do with me, it's an external stimulator, but I won't go into that here. And he breaks down. I tell him it'll be okay, and when he goes to leave to go back to his place he gets worse. I tell him to stay, to sit down, that I'll be done soon and we can get out for a bit. I know what's wrong, but there's no fix for it. He thinks it's silly, but I tell him he can tell me anything because nothing is really all that silly. And it isn't. It never is, really. Irrational, maybe, but not silly.
I'm still incredibly stressed.
I finish what I have, I make a couple of calls, I need to get out of the house for a bit. We leave to go to the post office and Kinko's, and to drop off a tax return at a client's, a tax return that did not come to me in the mail from my tax preparer on time so she had to fax it to me this morning.
And I feel like crap, I really do. I wonder if I have the flu. Dengue fever.
Malaria. Entropy. Something.
We go. He drives. I know what's wrong, and I can't fix it, I can only tell him that there is nothing wrong with his feelings because there isn't anything wrong with his feelings. I emphathize, for all the good that does.
We drop off the mail, we make the copies, we head towards the client's. He loses it in traffic, becoming angry and impatient, frustrated. And it concerns me, of course it does, and I begin to feel the familiar note of hopelessness rise within me.
So I tell him we'll drop off the tax return at the client's, then we'll get some clam chowder at the waterfront. When in doubt, call on food.
Lunch does not appear to be going well. He's morose, sad, angry, very angry, though he can't define it or say why. He's ready to explode at any time. And he breaks down at the table. He takes his knife, it's only a butter knife, but he takes his knife and he presses the blade against his arm, and I know he can't hurt himself that way and he won't, but I make him give me the knife anyway, and he does, and then he breaks down. I ask if he's okay, or if he needs to leave, and he says he's okay. He goes to the restroom to beat up on things.
When he comes back he says he's okay. And he takes some of the focaccia from the basket and squeezes it tightly in his hand and then gobbles it down. And he does it again. And I laugh. He puts pepper in his Pepsi. He puts his bread in his Pepsi, then eats it. When he eats his quesadilla (shrimp, we are at a seafood place after all) the cheese falls down the front of his shirt and he cleans it off by putting his jacket into his mouth. I can't help laughing. The jacket is subjected to this abuse several times. I take the ketchup away from him once, unsure what he's going to do with it, but certain it won't be a good thing. Indeed, he had planned on putting it into his Pepsi to see how that would taste.
"You're back, aren't you?" I ask him, unsure if he is or not.
"I'm having a psychotic break," he announces, and his behavior would seem to indicate some sort of psychotic episode. But all in all, it's better than he was, it's life of an eccentric sort but it's life.
"Are you laughing at me?" he asks, and of course I am, but I'm laughing because he's THERE, because the anger has been released and because he is THERE, and I don't care if the other patrons are finding anything about us odd or not, it doesn't matter.
He's there, back from the precipice. We eat dark chocolate cake with ice cream for dessert, so dense I can only eat a few bites. And when we leave the restaurant I yell out "Tax Day 2004!" I don't know why. I'm just wanting it to be over, another tax day survived.
I've felt better. I plan on feeling better again soon. I planned on it today. I'll plan on it for tomorrow. Until then, I'll just continue to do what I've been doing. Keeping my distance from the precipice, and helping him keep his distance as well.
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