Man! That’s a hard lesson for me.
And lately, revisiting a situation in the same old manner I’ve done in the past just. Isn’t. working.
It’s insanity. Truly. Or in plain speak, it’s crazy making.
Thursday, I tried something different, something new, and I found my way out of crazy town. I know I’m not alone with my over-stamped passport and resident’s visa to crazy town so I thought I’d share what happened.
Things in my life have been going really well. Better than well. They’ve been magorific!
The writing is fun as hell, the possibilities on the horizon — endless. I have found myself happier than I can ever remember being.
I know that saying that out loud is deemed a subversive act, but it comes into play here—I just can’t help it—and besides, wtf’s with THAT?
Anyway…I’ve begun to realize inside this massive reinvention of my life, that my past comes into play pretty much…NEVER.
Nothing I’ve done in my life up to this point, besides learning to read and write, has made a rat’s ass of difference in what is transpiring these days.
That at once feels daunting — making me feel like a complete novice in my mid-fifties where you’re supposed to know shit — and liberating — like I want to take off my bra and run topless down the beach like I may have done as a girl.
The very day I was reveling in this realization, my past came to visit me. To test my resolve.
The City of Los Angeles wanted more tax money from my long since dissolved corporation. I’ve been sending e-mails and faxing paperwork to them for a couple of years. My corporation ceases to exist which means… I owe them nada.
This is the perfect time to say: I have little tolerance of bureaucracy, even less for bureaucracy when they bug you for money, and none at all when they aren’t entitled to the money they’re chasing.
Meanwhile, they’ve gotten creative with their estimations of my imagined sales and have compounded the penalty interest daily. I’m sure you know what that feels like.
It’s like arguing with an obstinant, deaf, assholish elderly uncle — who hates you.
When I saw the envelope my stomach sank. It sank so deep they were going to have to send James Cameron back into the inky blackness of the bottomless Marianas Trench in search of my poor stomach. Then the pit turned to venous victimhood, which is the thug cousin of regular, generic victimhood.
It takes me down the dark allies of shame and lack, places I am VERY familiar with.
My knee-jerk reaction was to rip it up or light it on fire, which is pretty much my knee-jerk reaction to everything
Instead, I called my accountant and basically said, “Make this go away.” She barked back “It’s tax season, I don’t have time for this”, I think I heard her take a sip of beer or a hit off a crack pipe. “You’re going to have to do this yourself. Go to their Van Nuys office in person and take care of it.”
She may as well have suggested I jump into a pen of wild tigers while wearing Lady Gaga’s meat suit.
I hung up, ready to have a cigarette with the thugs in the alley of “this is not fair”.
“Damn. I’ve been so happy”, I lamented. And that’s when it hit me.
I’d rather stay happy than go back into those OLD feelings of victimhood and shame.
My past has NOTHING to do with what my life looks like now. This is NOT going to take me down! I will gather up my own stomach out of the pit of despair, go deal with the bureaucrats myself, and take care of this thing once and for all.
Are you with me?! Can I get an AMEN?!
But first I’ll eat a chocolate chip cookie, look at the paperwork with fresh eyes, see a phone number I’ve never seen before hidden on the back — and make a call.
Due to extremely high caller volume, (from people who were obviously much smarter than I was with much fresher eyes), I was asked to leave my number and they would call me back. “Bullshit!” I sneered and started to hang up. But that was the old way I always dealt with The City of Los Angeles. This new me left my cell phone number cheerfully on the recording.
By dinner time, I realized they hadn’t called me back but instead of fuming I just went back to Plan A.
I will go to Van Nuys and speak face to face with a human being, something I probably should have done years ago. There was no stomach pit, no malice, just anticipation of releasing an energetic albatross that’s been around my neck for years.
I woke up this morning waiting for the sinking feeling I’m so used to. Even as I was reminded of my impending visit to the land of bureaucracy, I felt only relief. That was HUGE for me.
At 9 AM, on my way out the door to the gym, I glimpsed the pile of paperwork I would need for my visit to Van Nuys, and I remembered leaving my number for a callback. “You better take that with you, what if they call you while you’re at the gym?” Before I could start laughing at the absurdity of that thought, the phone in my pocket started ringing.
It was The City Of Los Angeles. I’m not kidding. I can’t make this shit up. No one would believe me.
Mrs. Garcia (I love how when I asked her for her name she told me, Mrs. Garcia. I was in middle school all over again), was all business. She asked me a couple of unanswerable questions before we found some middle ground, I stayed light and shameless, and in the space of ten minutes, a chain of pain that has been severely knotted up for several years — fell away.
Turns out I owed them nada. (Here’s where I want to scream I told you so!!!)
Thank you, Mrs. Garcia!
And thank you happiness for the giant attitude adjustment.
And thank you past, for teaching me this valuable lesson.
And thank you chocolate chip cookie for just being delicious.
And thank You Guys for reading.
Carry on,
xox
