It’s May, finally. May Day. We should be celebrating spring, or fertility, or the union of feminine and masculine….dancing around a May pole with ribbons and decorated brightly with flowers, and eating cake. There is always cake.
I haven’t done the maypole dance since grade school. It was the most confusing form of physical education to me. Sometimes we did it when it wasn’t May. It was weird. I think of my pe teacher at the time and the weird maypole dance only makes a tiny bit of sense as relates to her. Not enough to really maybe make it make sense. We just did odd things to get exercise like try and weave ribbons around a pole to music. Also the parachute thing was weird. We lifted it up and would run under and try to make it to the other side while others tried to pull the parachute down and trap you. All strange memorable yet forgettable moments in time.
April took both a year to get through and also seemed like a blink. The daily grind of no daily grind wasn’t memorable enough to make the long drawn out month feel as long and drawn out as it felt. It wasn’t memorable. It’s forgettable. Except my dad died. In April. That’s was both memorable and forgettable. Depending on the day.
He is still dead in May. But at least it’s finally May. I never wish for a time frame gone. Maybe not never but rarely. I don’t want to rush a moment to get to the next, I can’t usually anyway. I’m too worried I won’t get to the next. This is my season. Spring isn’t my favorite season but it’s my busiest. I can’t pick a favorite season. I also don’t believe there are just the four. I have early, mid and late seasons of each season. I love that mine change. That I don’t have predictable weather patterns. I would get bored. Spring is now. But for me its almost mid. I am in the early to mid spring in May.
I am having severe angst over my mask. I know I should wear one. I also know I won’t be forced to. I also know I did one day in the store and peed a little from the rush of feeling suffocated. I also know there will be critics. There will be critics for me attempting to and for me not being able to. I will touch it all the time. I am a face toucher and a hair toucher. I can’t control it. I know most of what I am struggling with is in my head. Or on it? But my head isn’t always controlled by my head. My thoughts do this.
I have so much Im frustrated with today. It is mostly masks and taxes. So not so much just maybe two things. Three of I count my mailman. Which I do. I can’t call the taxes place. I want to go there. They aren’t open apparently yet the stimulus checks people receive are coming from them. I am not a people who has even received a stimulus check. It is likely because they aren’t sure who I am from all the errors I have made on my taxes. Proving annually who I say I am after entering a single number wrong because of who I am. I don’t care about the stimulus check but it’s a form of angst attached to the IRS. The tax people. The people who do taxes and make things so taxing for us who can’t tax right.
How can they send me a letter saying my address is wrong and I receive that but not the refund check sent to the same address deemed undeliverable by my mail man? Did he really doubt it was the correct address? It had a capital I instead of a 1. See how similar they look? In fact a capital I is Roman for a number 1. Roman numeral 1. Maybe I am part Roman and that’s how I write it? I’ve been here for three years and he choses this piece of mail containing thousands of my dollars undeliverable. I want his job. He delivers me bills and crap but not my federal tax return?
I can try to think of it as a savings account. If I try. My try and imagination are getting trying. Taxing. It’s becoming taxing just to imagine my taxes are being saved by not being delivered properly after I for the first time properly prepared them except for a Roman numeral 1 as my apartment number/letter.
Then I changed it. I sent them an amended return. Since I can’t call like the instructions say to do to give them my proper address. They think I’ve moved from apartment 1G to apartment IG? I’m going to confuse the tax place with all the papers and apologies for my lack of taxing skills. I amended it to say a number 1 then explained it. They likely won’t see the error and will just keep my check thinking I am someone else trying to get my check. They will then make me prove, again, I’m me and not someone else. I’m also taxed out from telling people who I am. Keep my taxes. Pay some tax bills with it or something. Maybe it will go in a fund to help clean up parks? Or a fund for corrupt business leaders? Or like a savings account for the tax place? I don’t even know what happens to money not claimed by people who claim it? It’s millions. Donate it to something. Or send it again. I don’t even know why I pay them? Just to get them back through forms with too many lines and words to make sense. I can’t imagine anymore what and where it went. It’s May now. Finally May.
My problem lies with my mailman. I see him. He is new. Not new new but mid season new. Not as seasoned as the guy who usually meanders in to deliver mail. Is the new guy angry at the mail system? Did he have a bad day that day? A divorce official. Delivered news of cancer? A dog died? He was crying and couldn’t read my address? He needs glasses and can’t afford them on his postal income? He actually dropped my check and didn’t notice and found it in the space in the seat that things go? Like fries? It’s all greasy and dirty and crumpled. Then he tells his boss and his boss is embarrassed and then decides to cover it up by saying it was undeliverable. It can go back and she can get a new cleaner check. Was it a cover up?
Maybe it is a grander scheme of a plan to get more mail money? They plan to undeliver mail randomly yet planned to show that there is a need for more funding in postal world. “I’m sorry that was undeliverable because we don’t have enough people to actually sort and deliver mail.” So they just send it back. Undeliverable. Who knows what goes on in postal world? Or taxing world? Or my mailman’s world? Or anyone’s? These are the most ridiculous taxing things I’ve ever thought. Today. May Day.
I’ve contemplated asking him. Just stopping down stairs and standing with my arms crossed at my box waiting. Tapping my foot impatiently. Then when he approaches I can just watch for a minute. Are there rules? Can I stand and watch my mailman for proper delivery then ask if he got it all. Then ask why he didn’t one day. Then over step mail boundaries even more. If there is an even more after this.
I have to let it go. I can’t let May be quite so taxing by thinking so much about taxes. I spent April thinking of my dad dead which is taxing enough for a month. I don’t want to drag May out into a forgettable memorable year like April was. The month my dad died. I want May to be a let it go month. I won’t be able to contact the tax place. I won’t be going there. I don’t even know where there is but it’s probably a state like Nebraska. I’m not going to Nebraska. It will resolve itself once I can resolve it. I will likely wait on the phone for the month of June to resolve the taxing taxes. But it’s not June it’s May. May Day. My day, not taxing day. Masking day.
Aspenleaf 