Accountancy 101.

I got an accountant recently. In the most wholesome and 'me' way; instead of comparing websites or knocking on doors, I popped a query in a group chat consisting of female-identifying humans in my quirky seaside town, and went with one of their recommendations. I called, chatted, made a date, then went in to meet the person assigned to me and my tragic financial state; I sat in their meeting room which, fun fact, was once a bank vault - hence the heavy door and lack of sunlight - and I just laid it all out and asked for help. It was so therapeutic and strangely empowering, pulling my laptop out of my backpack along with a handful of the scary brown envelopes I'd been receiving from HMRC for some time, and getting some direction. I didn't hold anything back; I showed this person who was on my side all my apps and platforms and invoices, I let her break me down into bullet points and beamed when she told me it really wasn't that bad, this was manageable, and to leave it with her. There was no judgement, which I think was what I'd been most afraid of. 

I've realised that having an admin-oriented person on hand for the past couple of years, while incredibly convenient and quite a relief for this maths-resistant unscientific creative brain, has actually hindered me somewhat. I don't think it's that I've become lazy, more like I've lost a small but significant amount of trust and confidence in myself to take care of certain matters. I hadn't needed it, I guess, so I let it ebb away and made room for other things - like how to take apart and clean an espresso machine, wonderment at the jolts of happiness I could find in plucking earnest little weeds out of ugly astroturf, and office friends' preferred lunch break timings I could feasibly align with. 

Photo by Yelena Odintsova.

I was gazing out a train window recently when I thought quite suddenly, I'm so hard on myself. Why? I have spoken with loved ones, my therapist and even near strangers about what I've gone through in the latter half of this year, and how proud I am not just for getting through it all, but for the amount of love, space and trust I made in my heart as well as my everyday life, and put into another person - more than I ever have before. More than I thought I was capable of. My mum once said I'd been independent since I turned 7; I would go off on my own and didn't need anyone. Teenage me walked to school in the November rain and fantasised about having her own little home someday, in London or Paris or BOTH, how she'd wear long skirts and drink grown up coffee and throw fabulous and raucous dinner parties for a gang of misfit friends who she'd also go on adventurous rambles through the countryside and along seafronts with the morning after. I don't think a suitor was ever part of these dreaming ponders. Sure, I was always obsessed with unrequited love, I'd play 'I'm Not That Girl' over and over in my bedroom and mouth along in front of the mirror, thinking of the heavy-fringed skater boy in my English class who chose to 'date' the popular girl with the perfectly plucked eyebrows, but I don't think I ever saw him or any other objects of my romantic/tragic yearnings following me to Paris or helping me host a salty pasta soirée. Still, I made room. I did it. And just because I struggle to retain receipts and save statement pdfs and overall assess myself in this particular mathematical way - so much so that I need the help of a professional who I can hire and pay quite easily - doesn't lessen my independence or mean I've failed. I can still be that iconic me I dreamed of. I can account for myself. Maybe without the dinner parties though, because they'd cause me quite a lot of stress. 

G. x