Taking Stock

Early on in my One Life To Live career, I saw a play called Taking Stock, which was directed by an actress on my show, and starred her husband. One of the perks of working on soaps in New York was going to the theater and seeing people on stage whom you knew personally. It wasn't that the tickets were free (though once in a while they were). It was just a nice feeling of being part of something exciting.

But I digress. I was reminded of this particular play (Taking Stock, that is) as we faced down our taxes tonight. Tax season is always stressful, requiring gathering of papers that have ended up here, there, and everywhere, and making phone calls or sending emails to acquire information we either can't find or never got.

What I realized this year, though, was how doing our taxes is kind of a "taking stock" moment (well, more like series of hours). As we calculate what was made and what was spent, we are also going back over the year in question. We remember things we did, and things we didn't do, and how the year differed from the one before and from the one we are in now (particularly interesting during these past few years of on and off work). The bills and receipts actually tell a story, a story that we normally just see word by word (merely getting through each day of our lives), but at tax time, can see as a whole sequence.

As our tax prep tends to be a multi-day process, I haven't "read" the whole book yet. But I am beginning to get a feel for the chapters. And as I do so, it's becoming easier to take stock of the year that has passed. We may not have liked it all, but we survived it, and stepping back, we can more easily see what worked and what we hope might be different when we do taxes next year.

It's not always easy to "take stock" of our lives. It's often more comforting (even if chaotic) simply to race through the days and not try to look at the whole picture. But taking stock forces us to take a glimpse, even just for a moment, of where we've been, and to look forward to where we are going.

And as we go through those chaotic days, sometimes it's nice to have had that glimpse, to have "taken stock."