Taxes make me cry

*This post has been written and waiting for a good "daddy picture" until right now, that's why I get to backdate it.* 

Not for the reasons you think. Although once in a while I wanna cry about the fact that the government takes all our money and spends it on things I don’t believe in, but that’s another story for another day.

Last night I watched the news (trying to figure out who went home on American Idol, NOT to brush up on current events or Pirates or other important things going in the world….I want to make sure that’s clear) and they did this big story about how it’s tax day.

They sent their reporter to the post office to show the enormous line of cars to drop off their taxes.

I am a chronic February filer. Well I was. Then I got married. Now Josh is a chronic February filer.  He asks me to do it about 10,000 times between February 1^st and 15^th, then he does it on the 16^th and calls me all day long to find out where all of our files are.  Our taxes are always filed early.

Growing up my Daddy was a chronic April 15^th filer. Of the extension. And an October 15^th filer of the taxes.

From the time I was like 13 or 14 he let me start “working” at his office. I started filing phone messages, which was an eternal job and quite possibly the most boring job on the planet, and one year he “promoted” me and let me help balance his bank accounts for taxes. He watched over my shoulder while I entered the information I didn’t understand into his Accounting software. He read me the numbers and I typed them in. At the end of each bank statement we’d go back through the whole thing 20 times trying to find my $.03 error. The “bwlip bwlip bwlip” of the data being entered would keep us both awake when we were too tired to keep ourselves awake.

He’d take me to work with him after hours or on a Saturday, and I would’ve said “held me hostage” until the work was done, but now that I look at it, I loved being there with him. I whined and moped and complained and wanted to go home; “just 3 more bank statements and we can” he’d answer.

Some days I was too tired to do anything and I’d curl up on the hard floor and try to sleep. I couldn’t sleep, but I refused to work, I think I was trying to prove a point. I’d watch him out of the slits of my eyes, and he’d just sit there. Working. For hours. My Daddy is the strongest man I know. He never stops. He never quits. And nothing is “too hard” or takes “too long”.

We’d do the taxes together, get the forms filed, printed and signed. He taught me how to balance a bank account (although I had no idea what any of the numbers or transactions meant). He taught me what the software was doing and why. He taught me that when things are due, you do what you have to and get it done. He taught me that it feels good to come home from a long day at the office and have (what was once hot) dinner out on the table for you. We’d come home together and eat at the two places left out for us.

We’d talk on the drive home, and he’d tell me how great it was to have me there with him. He told me that he couldn’t do it without me (which is ridiculous to think about now…because he did it for the first 30-whatever years of his life without me….) and he made me feel like I was the only person capable of that job. He’d watch me put the numbers in and be amazed at how fast my fingers could go (the same way I watch how fast other people text…and think it’s impossible).  He’d wait at the top of the stairs to turn out the lights so I didn’t have to go down them in the dark, and he ALWAYS opened the car door for me.

It was Daddy and me against the world. And we were gonna win. It didn’t matter what needed to be done, we could do it together.

I’ve always thought of myself as a Daddy’s girl, and for some reason I always thought he loved me the most of all my siblings. He has the ability to make a person feel like they are the most loved, and most important person. If you asked me who I trusted most in the world, it would be him. There is nothing he can’t do, and nothing he wouldn’t do for me.  And growing up, I always knew he loved me more than anybody.

So tax time every year reminds me of my Daddy and how much he taught me. It reminds me of how much time he spent with me, and how much I love to be around him. It reminds me that no matter what I need to do, I am capable of it. It reminds me that he loves me, and I love him. And that, is why Taxes make me cry.