Liberating in Side Effects

The accountant/hoarder in me wants me to hold on to any and every piece of paper ever involved in my income and expenses from the beginning of all times. That is practically what I have done for the past 20 years to the date, with my personal accounting and all the family accounting.

Technically, there is only obligation to hold on to archives for 5 years. There was a certain time bracket where I had great income. I worked in real estate, I had a toddler, 2 preteen stepsons, a freeloader husband. It was a time of mixed feelings. In my head, career wise I was soaring, I was aweome. Heck, I even built my own house and paid it off. At that age, I was ahead of my friends in that aspect. But my personal life was hell. Very often waves of memories come back, and I just remember never being still. Always walking, on the bus, in a taxi, one side of the city to the other, out of town trips, back-forth, back-forth, client after client, house after house, contract after contract, walking one kilometer from my house carrying my laptop in a bag on one side and my toddler resting on my left hip with her backpack while I took a bus to the city to take her to daycare, and then go on to work my ass off and coming home either to loneliness or constantly being told how worthless I was. It is as is I am seeing myself in a movie and it is fastfowarding.

Yes, I made money, but I never enjoyed it. My ex husband milked me for every cent I had. That was the reason I bought the house, I put every cent and savings into it as fast as I could before he could get his hands on my money and spend it like a bitch. Despite the fact that I am an accountant, an excellent accountant by the way, and I did all of my co-workers’ accounting too…I wasn’t paying my own taxes. Because even though I knew exactly how much I had to pay, I was such a pushover and I was always bailing him out of his purchases. The debt kept increasing, I knew, with interest. But I waited it out for the years to pass where law states that fiscally, the authorities can only summon me to present 5 years worth of accounting.

For all this time I kept everything accumulated in legal binders, that took up space. They were just there, like tacky furniture, haunting me, taunting me. A constant reminder that I never seem to put an end to things or close cycles. My fear was that was one of these days I’d be audited, and it was better that I had everything on hand, just in case. In fact, I was audited this year, but the authorities only revised 2013 to 2015 and I came out clean, just like I knew I would. For prevention, I waited the year out, just to make sure they didn’t come around again and want to go back a couple of years.

But it is 2017. Legally, I only have to keep record of 2012 to the date. That allows me to destroy 2011 and anything before that. 2011 was when I signed my divorce, 2010 when I left him. I woke up in an invigorating mood. My current husband (and permanent, I don’t plan on changing him!), woke up working at my desk preparing for a meeting. Meanwhile, being the office geek I am, I delighted myself in using my paper shredder. I took one last look at all those expense receipts. Ads I put in the paper. Ads I put in newspapers from other cities. The payment for the design of my website. Toll booth tickets from trips out of town. My god damn home office phone bill, with my previous address on there. I hated that apartment. Nice memories with my kids, but everything else was hell. I don’t even work in real estate anymore. That was nice, while it lasted. That job was taking it’s toll on me too. I shredded each paper with particular joy.

ALL GONE, it fit into two plastic bags that I already threw out outside. It felt so good I wanted to cry. Is that crazy of me?

Now that it’s all gone and not in my freaking way, taking up space on my desk, in info on my computer, in my paranoia, I can focus on now, damn it. So out with the old, in the the new. I have so new projects that I’m trying to define as I redefine myself and our needs.

Between my work, Adrian’s Chelsea’s 5th grade shitload of homework, and my toddler climbing onto my desk, it looks like hell.

Me, attempting to look enthusiastic about getting my desk clean because I have clients coming over

Last updated February 03, 2017