I function pretty well in most areas of my life – but I have real difficulty with anything relating to the law.
I used to do my income taxes myself – err, try to do them – but I gave up and now go to H&R Block…I could never decide if I had done them right. Even with H&R Block’s help, I feel an deep queasiness in the pit of my stomach. The hours I spend collecting the documentation…the hours I spend sitting with the accountant – I just want to vomit.
Now I’m moving. I’m excited about that. I’m looking forward to my new, smaller domicile. I’m looking forward to making it me. It already feels more me than this house.
Why am I moving? So I can rent out the house to bring in some extra income. I’d sell it, but the value of the house declined by around $40k since we bought it and the mortgage currently slightly exceeds the value of the home…that sucks.
I posted on Craiglist and had eighteen responses within two days. Sweet. But the paralysis began to set in yesterday…that deep gnawing feeling that I can’t handle this…I can’t mange the intricacies of all this.
The first step is to talk to a code enforcement office for the township and have them do a review of the house. What needs to be fixed or changed to bring it up to code? But this overwhelms me. Why? Because I’m afraid he’ll say there is something huge…and then what am I supposed to do?
As I write about it, it is obvious that my mind is skipping steps ahead – steps it doesn’t need to take. First contact the code enforcement officer, schedule an appointment, and see what happens. Then deal with whatever happens when it happens. Don’t predict, don’t become paralyzed by the potential. Easily said, much more difficult to do.
I’ve been doing fairly well for a while now – but this sort of thing can really knock me for a loop. I just don’t want to have to deal with it. Others can do this with relative ease – in part b/c they don’t worry so much about if they don’t follow this guideline to the T. But for me, well my head is throbbing, I feel nauseous – and I’ve been fairly immobilized – reduced to posting old pictures – for the last 3+ hours.
I hate this. These things come from the outside and rock my world. This is why I wanted to join the military when I was younger – why it still sometimes looks appealing. All I need do is follow orders – I don’t need to think for myself – b/c making decisions hurts too much.
It sucks. So I’ll try using the CES device, I’ll go to sleep, I’ll talk to my counselor in the morning, and hopefully I’ll be functional enough to freaking talk to the code enforcement officer.
I try to architect my life in such a way that I avoid these things – but they always come after me. I look back at my teenage years with some sadness – knowing that my inability to determine how to run a legal small business continually kept me from becoming the early blooming businessman I could have been. I’ve lost opportunities b/c I just couldn’t make the choice. I was paralyzed by the freaking laws…
It takes all my effort right now not to type out a blue streak…the pain is intense and these family-friendly words can’t communicate the pain I feel inside right now.
I’ve dealt with this sort of thing before…and sometimes, sometimes I’ve just taken the hit. In this case that would look like just leaving the house empty…maybe even letting it be foreclosed on.
I won’t do that – but the pain is intense enough that I want to…I want to so, so badly.