Adversity, the Never-ending Saga

Never a dull moment when you’re in our situation.  You never get complacent, or assume all troubles are finally behind you.  It keeps you on your toes.

This time, as feared, the IRS had to get their turn.  Probably the name change triggered it.  E got the dreaded “quiz’ which is a questionnaire from the state to examine you on all sorts of ridiculous, irrelevant info from your past, most of which doesn’t even pertain to her.  But if you get any questions wrong, it sends up alarms.

She went and sat down with our tax preparer for assistance with the quiz and the IRS, whom they talked to for a while, trying to sort it all out, but it wasn’t resolved.  She has to send their form back and hope for the best, but may have to end up going down to the big IRS office in Dayton, where you take your life in your hands just parking, sit in a building all day hoping to be seen, and possibly have to return and start all over again.  She dreads an audit.  Not only is it scary and humiliating, but it adds one more last straw to the mountain of setbacks that have beset her and hold her back from just moving on as a normal person.

Of course it doesn’t help to be in a backward state like Ohio, where anything different or nonconventional is suspect and sparks a witch hunt.  Religion and politics get mixed up together and distort what should be a straightforward process into an ordeal.  All the official documents and paperwork are properly submitted, clear and indisputable, but ignorant small-minded bureaucrats can’t let it go.  It’s one more way to persecute someone who already feels demoralized and crushed.  This is how marginalized people end up suicidal.  You try so hard to jump through the hoops, with honesty and integrity, and mind your own business, but it’s never enough.

Well that’s today’s rant.  Stay tuned for the next exciting adventure, which I’m sure there will be.  We know one day this will all be behind us, and we’ll move on in new surroundings.  E would love to just be a regular person, blending in, no drama.  It’s a goal most of us take for granted, or even try to rise above, but for her, an average, quiet, non-assuming life would be a luxury.

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