Big Toe in the Water…

I spent a day testing the temperature of the new job I’m starting in late May/June. The start date is a little vague, it’s kind of up to the little girl who is preparing to be hatched, whether she’ll arrive early, late, or on time and when she feels ripe enough to face the world and bless us with her presence.

Yes, I’m covering a friend’s maternity leave for six months (more or less depending on how mom and baby get along) and the job is a bit different from what I’m used to. I’ll be in the post production side of the TV show and just a little bit of directing but still exciting and challenging in a more reasonable 9-5 Monday through Friday mode that won’t keep me in my car in traffic all day.

Change is as good as a rest, ‘they’ say.

I’m enjoying this current extended time off especially since the weather is changing but there is something hanging over me that is demanding my attention. The government keeps asking me about their money and when I expect to submit taxes and all that jazz and stuff and junk. I’m independently employed, usually, so I file with the husband in June. We can’t file one without the other, because we need to cancel each other out- or something much more technical sounding that I virtually ignore whenever our (tall, handsome, patient) accountant talks income.

Last year was different. We moved out of the house, then moved out some more then a little more then pitched a tent, cleared out the basement and moved the rest until there was nothing left but the cat, 12 contractors and occasionally a front end loader and random fresh bins. Everything went somewhere in storage containers and we decided that with all the stress and discombobulation we would just file two years worth of income tax together this year.

Cue this year:
If you find filing your taxes every year to be stressful, tiring and anxiety-inducing you can picture me (like the phony face above but in scream mode) trying to tackle two years worth. Which contracts did I work on two years ago? Where are all the invoices tucked away in the computer? Did I ever get a child-care receipt from that day camp? Ahhhhhhh!!!!!

How easy it now seems to just go in the backyard and just sit, leave the pile of receipts in that cardboard box where envelopes divide the parking receipts into their proper years and separate the lunch receipts from the working expenses.

I seriously do not have the capacity to concentrate on addition for hours on end. Most of my receipts are under ten dollars and that makes for very long columns of small numbers and the only thing that gets taxed is my memory work. I’m in TV, people. We are not supposed to be able to do math, it’s a pre-requisite for employment! Every year (except last year) I vowed I would stay ahead of the game, keep clear records, not GO THROUGH THIS AGAIN. But, well, I’m GOING THROUGH THIS AGAIN.

If I were back at work I would be in progressive, working-mother mode: get up, get clean, make lunches, get to work, you know the routine, then I would come home, help with dinner (stop laughing) and set aside time to just DO THE DAMN TAXES. Instead I have all day to do them so I spend all day avoiding the task. Suddenly I get into magpie mode and get distracted by random shiny things (like laundry), gossip sites, long phone conversations, it’s the last thing on my mind but the heaviest thing on my shoulders.

Knowing how unpredictable pregnancies are I should be concentrating on getting things done so that when I go back to work the added stress of completing taxes isn’t coming with me. What is wrong with someone who needs to wait until the last minute to complete a task, is it the thrill of the deadline or a weird victim/defeatist complex (I will fail and get in trouble, it happens to me all the time)?

If you have the answer to that (and are a certified chartered accountant who specializes in freelance television jobs), please reply ASAP.