Rent

Paid it today. It was technically due no later than yesterday, but since it was Saturday I slipped under the line without a late fee.

I'm almost out of checks. Damn.

Coward

As a child, I was socially awkward, and I had a really hard time making friends. Actually, I was a little prick, and basically forced otherwise nice people to either hate me or want to have nothing to do with me.

When I was in the 7th grade, I changed schools. My parents had recently divorced, and my dad had rented an apartment in another school district. Because I was such a miserable little shit and had no friends, I thought I could go to another school and start fresh.

This experiment lasted for exactly one day. I realized quickly that I would have no better luck making friends in the new school than I had in the old one. The new school was larger, scarier, and much more intimidating than the new one.

I remember the day that my parents informed the new school that I would be transferring back to the old one, I was called in to speak with the counselor at the new school. He warned me, wisely, that I couldn't spend my whole life running away. At some point, I would be forced to stay and deal with the problems I was having.

To this day, I am still running, in many ways.

I have become slightly less dickish in my behavior. I have actually managed to make a friend or two. Although I am not exactly comfortable in new social settings, I can at least avoid making outright enemies in most circumstances.

But I have not learned that I can not improve myself by avoiding my problems. Time and time again, when I am faced with difficulties, I put my head in the sand and pretend that there is no problem.

There is no difference, really, between a 13-year old me not doing a homework assignment that seems too hard and a 30-year old me not opening a credit card bill I think I can't pay.

I don't know when I will stop this cycle of willful neglect. I have screwed up my life pretty bad already, and it will be a struggle to put myself on a better path even if I can overcome these old habits.

If I can't change my habits, how much worse will it get? What more hell can happen in my life before I finally hit bottom? Is it too late now for me to be anything more than the coward who stares back at me from the mirror?

Work

Gotta go to work early tomorrow. It's going to be a busy day, and I'll start at 6 am.

I'm kind of, sort of, a little bit blue collar. Not that I really think of myself that way, but I guess if you drive a forklift and wear a hard hat, I don't think I can really claim to be anything else.

Given the current economic situation, I guess I can't really complain. I have a job. Knock on wood. My boss, who is almost (but not quite) as neurotic as me, treats me well and wants to see me succeed.

But, damn, it is just so hard to manage everything. I am nowhere near as organized or efficient as I should be.

The ownership group that controls my company has recently changed and, although no one has taken particular notice of me yet, I fear that someone will soon call me out for incompetence on some matter or another.

Part of this is just me worrying and being negative. Still, the threat is real.

Right now, I am just trying to take things one day at a time.

Longer Than I Expected

Wow, that took nearly two weeks.

I thought if I made some big deal of doing a public confessional, I would somehow be motivated to get on the stick and take care of business.

No such luck.

Anyway, I finally did take care of a couple of small things. I had gotten a letter in the mail from the IRS. I filed last year's tax returns online, and there was a form that I needed to mail in in order to make my returns official. I never mailed it. I just, kind of, blew it off. I am not sure whether I expected the IRS to just forget about me. Whatever I thought, I was wrong.

After receiving the first letter a few months ago, I had every intention of taking care of things, but I didn't. It's not like it was a difficult thing to take care of -- it was just a form. But still, I didn't take care of things. I buried my head in the sand.

When I got my second letter a couple of weeks ago, I started to get scared.

You see, the IRS isn't the only arm of the government I am working with right now. There is another branch (I won't go into too much detail right now) to which I owe a significant amount of money. Every month, I have to write a check. Every month I am late with the check. Every month I am scared that I am going to get into deeper trouble than I am already in.

Still, today I took care of the IRS, and that was a good thing. I mailed off my little form and that felt very good.

I am not out of the hole. I will have another return to file in a couple of months, and I am sure I will put that off until the last possible moment.

I have a car that needs an oil change and some other maintenance.

I have bills that are piling up at home, and I am not sure whether I can take care of them all.

At work, I am every bit as irresponsible as I am in my personal affairs.

Can I ever change my ways? Can I ever be a responsible, productive member of society?

I don't know. I wonder sometimes how I will every get through life acting the way I do. Things have only gotten worse the longer I have lived. I live in fear that tomorrow, the next day, and the day after, things will become worse than I can imagine today.

Am I already past the point of no return?

I'm In Deep Shit

It's not really a surprise. I have been treading water for years. Bouncing from one inadequate job to another. Piling up bills. Not paying. Hiding from creditors. Making bad decisions. Running on empty.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

So now, there are a couple of big things I am dealing with. I haven't decided how much detail I am going to go into, so I will only speak in generalities for now. Suffice it to say, I am dealing with more than one governmental office. I owe some money. That's all I really want to say right now.

Anyway, the way I have dealt with these things in the past has been to just ignore it. It will go away. Kind of like the credit card company that finally quits calling for their money. Just don't take the calls long enough and they get the idea.

Not that I set out to cheat the credit card companies. It just kind of happened. At some point I probably could have still taken care of things. But it was just easier to let sleeping dogs lie. If I had money in the bank, I spent it on making myself comfortable and happy in the moment. I could blame others--my family, my partner, that salesman at Circuit City--but the truth is I just decided to deny to myself that I needed to pay those bills.

Eventually no one would loan me money anymore. Or at least I had enough shame not to ask anyone to loan me money.

Unfortunately, there are those other matters, legal matters, that I am dealing with.

One of them should be easy to take care of. It involves signing a form and sending it in. Damn it, though, I have been putting it off and putting it off. I should be doing that right now instead of writing in a fucking blog that I probably won't even keep up with beyond a couple of weeks.

But there is my problem. I know what I should do, but I don't have the, what--self-respect, discipline, intelligence, I don't know--whatever it takes to do what I know I should do.

If any of this makes any sense.

Whatever.

If you hear from me again it will be me reporting back the fact that I have completed my form or I will be informing you of my impending court date.