Alligator Wrestling with Taxes in Helsinki?

Goddamn, it’s Friday. Hallelujah! 

Don’t know ‘bout you but I’ll put off an onerous task like tax prep, folding and putting away my laundry, Marie Kondo-ing my closets for-fucking-EVAH. And then there’s dental procedures. The dental surgery I had just a couple weeks ago was the final of a trio had over this past year. I put this last one off for months. I had Jen reschedule it three different times. 

Jesus Novocaine Christ, I was dreading it. The hour or two in the chair as the surgeon wrestled my face like they were Florida alligator wrestlers and I was the poor reptile – i.e. NOT gently. OH, the pain I anticipated – the days upon weeks of only being able to drink broth and eat mashed food! Life would be misery!

How’d it turn out? The whole shebang took less than 15 minutes. I was dazed and fuzzy afterward but, amazingly, in zilcho pain AND there was very little blood. I was eating regular food a day later.

Did I feel like a big, chickenhearted, whiny, baby-ass, scaredy cat? Big time!

Similarly, I’ve put off doing my taxes for a few years. I've never owed – the government always owes me. So WHAT was my problem? All the damn paperwork. Collecting and collating all my receipts and shit for my deductions. Dotting every last "i" and crossing every single "t." In putting off something so, ultimately – when taken step by step, easy and uncomplicated, I made SO much more work for myself.

It’s done though. How’d it go? Obscenely smoothly. Embarrassingly so. 

I spent ridiculous amounts of emotional energy this winter with dread and anxiety as my roommates. What a fucking waste of headspace. 

The last thing weighing on me is my last round of MRIs which I’ll have tomorrow morning. I’ll review the results with Doc Plotkin on May 7th. I’m not really expecting any horror-show news. I read the the lab’s write up of my first two scans and it doesn’t look like there’s been much critical growth but what do I know? I’m not a neurologist.   

So then, MRIs tomorrow BUT at least I’ve the insanely overdue tax prep is off to the accounting wizards.

Ya know what having the tax weight off my bean does? It frees me up to dream and scheme. Fer instance – Jen’s nephew just got into grad school for geology. How wicked awesome is that?! Even better, he got into the University of Helsinki! 

Obviously my first thought was WE HAVE TO GO VISIT HIM THERE! We’ve never been to Finland and now I am ALL kinds of curious. I want to know everything about Finland!

Yeah wait…hold those damn horses:
Q:  How psyched is a 24-year-old kid gonna be about his aunt and her elderly, sweary, disabled, deaf, bestie coming to visit him at college?

A:  I’m sure he’d be 199 kinds of thrilled to have one of his fave aunties visit. Me? I’m not as much fun as I once was. Advanced age and NF2 will do that for ya. Still, Jen and Seamus could go out and hit the clubs (or whatev). I can sit at our hotel bar sipping my Lonkero or Ville Vallaton and then head up to our room to read and otherwise enjoy the view of Helsinki (i.e. NOT America).

I will have to research how to travel as a less than fully able human.  I know I’ll need to be in a wheelchair for airport navigation but once we’re in Finland, I want to be uprightly mobile.

If Seamus is down with us visiting, I’m figuring we’ll go next spring. This will give me a year to build up my leg strength and endurance. Riding my recumbent elliptical is good cardio but it’s not weight bearing. I need to walk and just stand for that.

Having this potential trip on the horizon is giving me extra incentive, more motivation to brave the windy outdoors and walk, walk, walk.