Sense of accomplishment

This is going to sound strange, but there is something I look forward to each year with doing our taxes.  I don't like the actual doing of the taxes.  It is tedious.  I'm organized enough that I have the needed papers.  The program on my computer is straightforward enough that I don't get too many headaches (although curses to HSAs).  As a child, I remember the one or two days a year, my father would get out all of the things he would need to complete our taxes.  The papers, the books, a calculator, scrap paper, pencils, stapler, paperclips, a few envelopes, file folders, the check book, and a pen to do the final draft with along with White Out.  Typically, my parents paid bills sitting at their desk.  For this, the whole dining room table was commandeered for the event.  The tablecloth pulled off and folded up on a chair.  I remember being told to stay out of the dining room and stay quiet because he was "doing taxes".  It was an adult thing to do.  Grown ups do it.  I wondered when I would do it myself.

I didn't start doing our own taxes until the year Pyrope was born.  Before that, my dad being the CPA he was always did them for me, then us.  The first year after he passed away, we had W-2's from 4 states (well, one was technically the District of Columbia) and several other special circumstances.  I didn't feel like I could handle them myself that year.  After that, I took them on myself.  Just a tax program and me (I had been well trained to gather all of the documents in a manila envelope, I just had never opened it up myself to deal with the papers within).  I could get my mom to do them (as she is a "professional tax preparer", she does all of my siblings).  It would save me time, and it is something that my mother would not mind doing (particularly because unlike my one brother who literally calls at 9 or 10 at night when they need to be postmarked by midnight, I would have all of my stuff to her with a couple of months to spare).  I do have her look over my return each year.  And call for questions.  But I do them myself.

What I look forward to is the final step, dropping them in the mailbox.  I love the feeling that I have accomplished something.  Something that many others find too daunting, or time consuming, or whatever other reason hire someone else to do.

Today, I dropped the final part of our taxes in the mail.  And smiled.  As I know I will do again next year.