Addicted to Flickr After Taxes and Can’t Stop Posting
But I’ll take a break to write this today
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After-tax restlessness and lack of focus
Can you remember what final exams week was like during your school days? Normal life would stop. For that week it was all books, notes, and studying, sometimes far into the night. By the end of the week, it was over.
If you’re like me you may have felt lost as you tried to resume normal life. You had been so focused on studying it was hard to decide what to do when you could put the books away. A deadline at work for a huge project can work the same way.
So can preparing my tax forms for submission here in California. Every year I tell myself I’ll keep the bookkeeping up to date all year, but then life interferes. Or I’m so tired of checkbooks and receipts I procrastinate. Again. Just like last year. And suddenly it’s April again. Those months after filing my taxes just flew by. For me, preparing our tax return is just like finals week. It’s a period of intense work that’s a struggle for me.
I use software to help, but our return is complicated. We have three rental properties and I have two businesses. Even if I don’t make much, I have to file those two Schedule C forms. I have to itemize for those and for Schedule E, as well. I have to dig for the receipts I didn’t get around to filing yet. I hate filing and bookkeeping chores.
I often choose to write or take pictures to escape them. But in April I can’t stall anymore. Writing stops. Only urgent house chores get done. Photo walks stop. I bury myself in paper.
This year is worse because I had COVID-19 in December and still had COVID brain. I had forgotten how to do my taxes. I had to relearn everything. It was hard to focus. When I finally finished, I wanted only to do something easy.
Writing is hard work. Taking pictures is fun. So is playing with them and organizing them on Flickr. So is traveling the world through the pictures of others. After submitting my taxes I escaped to Flickr and am becoming addicted to the site.
