The Secret Ingredient

"When life demands more of people than they demand of life - as is ordinarily the case - what results is a resentment of life almost as deep-seated as the fear of death." - Tom Robbins

This started out being an exploration of frustration. Then, in a truly wonderful example of just that issue, I was unable to cut and paste the piece I'd written in word into this blog.

Don't ask me why I am suddenly unable to copy and paste things here. I don't know. Perhaps the coding changed (I USED to be able to do it), or maybe I inadvertently altered some setting. Whatever the reason, I am now unable to copy and paste text from, well, anywhere onto this site.

This angers me. This annoys me. This frustrates me. I resent people who can blog easier and can copy and paste into THEIR blogs.

Ok, maybe I resent plenty of things now.

I do. I don't like it, but I do. I like admitting that I do even less.

(This is not what this entry was supposed to be about.)

I resent people that get away with doing whatever they want without regard for others. And here's where I begin to make sweeping generalizations and start sounding crazy and the ranting begins. I hate people who take their own hearing for granted and do not respect mine. (Ok, this one is more concrete and you know who you are, or at least you should, if you were thoughtful enough to consider the matter, which you are not, so it follows that you do not, in fact, know who you are.) (OK, that was the crazy rant part.) I'm am referring, in this instance, to people who blast their MP3 players to point where someone standing across the room can hear every note and lyric and sing along with what was designed to be a personal listening experience.

I resent people who drive drunk.

I resent people who break promises.

I resent people who have jobs and blatantly fail to DO their jobs when so many are un and under employed.

I resent people who...

And now I've distracted myself by wondering if you can actually resent people or are you resenting the action?

Resent is from the French "ressentir", "to be angry", and the Old French, "resentir", "to feel strongly".

And now I'm not angry anymore. Not much, anyway. I'm just tired and frustrated again. This post was supposed to be about my inability to deal with paperwork post injury. Really, I just can't get it together now. I'm in the process of trying to organize my paperwork for my '09 taxes and I just can't seem to do it. I am overwhelmed. It doesn't make sense to me.

How do I tell people that? How do I admit to anyone, really, that I stare at piles of paper for hours sometimes and simply don't know what to do with them? (Well, I'm admitting it now, am I not?)

If it were only so easy to actually DO the thing. I am an embarrassment to my family because of this. They don't get it. They don't understand it. I can't ask them for help because they think I'm just being lazy and defiant and a procrastinator. I'm not. I don't pay my bills because I don't know how to do it anymore.

I recognize that doesn't make sense. You open a bill. You sit down. You write a check. You mail the check. Or perform some version of that in an online format. It doesn't sound so difficult. I can enumerate the steps I just can't make the steps happen. I'm always wrong. I'm always behind. I always miss something. Just when I think I've paid everything successfully something gets returned... I wrote the wrong date. I paid the wrong amount. Some other silly oversite or error and I'm back to square one again.

The worst part is that it's endless. Bills come at different times. Yes, I guess I could adjust some of the billing dates, but not all of them. Just when you think it's over, here's the new set. There's no respite. I will have to do this for the rest of my life.

Did I mention that I was not this way before the accident.

I can show you the books from back when I owned the catering business. Books so clearly and obsessively organized that it would make an accountant cry with joy. Weekly logs, receipts, spreadsheets, I did it all. I had it together. I used to pride myself on having an easily understandable system that worked. Now... chaos.

Do I organize by month or by type? Hell, I can't even find half of the receipts and bills. I don't pay anything in an organized fashion anymore. Some bills I pay with cash. CASH? Who pays their bills in cash anymore? Some with checks. Some online.

I'm lost both in the paper chase and in the virtual world.

I resent people who can do this easily.

I resent people who have a system.

I resent people who have jobs and lives that allow them to have systems.

I resent the fact that I'm using this space to rant. I feel like this will have wasted the time of anyone who reads it. Sorry about that. Still, this is what's going on in my head. It is a fairly faithful document. That's the best I can do at the moment.