shuffling papers...

...as I sit here, at my dining table, in the process of 'processing'.  Organizing for the beginning of tax return submission.  I have already invested hours this morning shuffling papers, adding (literally- with a calculator) - a fruitless occupation for the chronically, acutely math impaired. It is so pitiful I feel like I could add the same column of numbers six time and come up with seven answers. I go through this same thing every month when I devote too many hours in an effort to reconcile my check register with the bank's opinion of my funds. Probably primarily because my dad was such a stickler, and so adept at making the numbers come out even. Not a trait that is passed along in DNA, as I have struggled all my life with things numerical.  There is a snapshot in my head of my dad sitting with me at the dining table in the house where I grew up, with him hoping to make the multiplication facts stick in my brain, and my gray-matter not being wired for such trivial things.

This stuff is so aggravating and frustrating to me, I won't even try to add the numbers on several pages of lined filler paper more than once. Twice would entail me going over the same plowed ground more times to (finally!) reach the same sum a second time. Which would then allow me to say: that's it!

I've kept a list for the past few years of miles traveled for volunteer stuff, as I find myself becoming roped into more and more non-profit endeavors, giving my time to various projects.  And on the advice of a friend, who is profoundly thrifty, as well as a volunteer with the AARP tax prep. group, started keeping a running tally of time/miles given in community support to things like the Master Gardening program, local Botanical Garden, Girl Scouts, work as an usher at the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts in Uptown Columbus (a 24  mile round trip!), church activities.  As well as making notes for frequent trips to medical offices, labs, drugs stores for Rx fills and over-the-counter meds. I am already astounded at how many miles I drove just going to the doctors we seem to visit on a much too frequent basis, to say nothing of the hundreds of dollars spent on medications, both prescription and OTC.

I know it was not original with my dad, but I heard it often, coming from him, as he attempted to make the best of declining health. In the last few years of his life as he struggled, he would often quote this in relation to his problems, as he was not  a guy to whine/complain.  I think of it as a 'Sonnyism': "Old age ain't for sissies."

A little post script- most of the meds I personally take every day are what I consider preventative. Vitamins and supplements, things I've been using, self-prescribing for years. In an ongoing effort to be and stay healthy. With my goal: stave off some of the effects of the natural, God-designed process where body parts won't allow us to stay in eternal denial :)