Weblog 2

At 21 years old I anxiously sat on my small blue sofa that barely fit in what was more a room than an apartment.   Trembling with fear I looked over at my soon-to-be husband sitting next to me with only support in his eyes.  Then I glanced over at my future mother-in-law across the room before looking back down at the phone in my hands.  I felt my heart racing, like I was being dropped from several stories plummiting to earth, and I fought back the tears with all my strength while I dialed the dreaded number to my mother’s house.  

At 18 years I thought I was finally an adult and of course I couldn’t have been more wrong.  On my 19th birthday I became engaged and moved into a very small apartment in the Fan District of Richmond, VA with my future husband.  Everything was okay until, at 21, I realized that my mother was going to claim me on her taxes, again.  In turn that legally made me dependent, since I was not married yet, which meant that I would not be able to help pay the bills with the measly money my student loans would supply me with.  If I couldn’t get the money to pay the bills I would have to work full-time while going to school full-time, which is a very difficult task.  My husband was already doing that strenuous task and in addition to that his mom would give us some extra cash each month and took out parent-student loans to help us.  The money would suffice for a while but my mother-in-law was about tapped out and a little irritated, along with myself and my husband, that my parents weren’t contributing very much. 

I knew what I had to do but was torn between doing what was best for my husband and I or doing what was best for my mother and father.  My mom just lost her job, going from $80 k a year to what ever little bit of money the government gave her each month, and my dad was working odd jobs, never earning more than $20 k a year.  To make matters worse,  my pregnant 24 year old sister moved back home and did not contribute to my parents’ bills.  Whatever ’extra’ money my parents could spare went straight to my sisters’ doctor bills and they paid an extra 200 bucks a month just to keep her on thier health plan.   Never the less, it was pretty obvious to me my mother needed the the extra money the deductible could give her on her tax return.  While I felt terrible about telling her that she couldn’t claim me, I knew that if she couldn’t help me with the bills then she shouldn’t be able to claim that I was dependent on her.  I knew it just wasn’t fair to my husband or to my mother and father-in-law if I did not contribute more to our finances.  So I made that dreaded call that caused my mother and I so much grief and strained our relationship, unbeknownst to her, even more.  At that very moment when I said ‘I’m sorry but you can’t claim me on your taxes this year’  and resisted her crying pleas, I became-literally and emotionally-an independent adult.  The feeling swept through me, a feeling I hadn’t felt before, I was grown up.  I faced a fear and over came it and the satisfaction that I got from it was empowering.  After the phone call I no longer felt regret of what I had just done, like I thought I would.  I was sad that I hurt her and I was even more sad because I knew her situation too well and there was nothing I could do for her.    

Through this experience I learned to grow up, to be independent, and to stand up for my self, even though I may hurt feelings along the way.  As I look back I see how needy and dependent I was.  I had wanted every one else to do things for me.  I hung to people feeling I needed to be supported because I felt I couldn’t be independent.  I see that the reason I never wanted to argue and why I said yes to everything was because I didn’t want anyone upset with me.  Because I had these feelings I did alot of things I knew was wrong, I did things I didn’t really want to do, and I let people walk all over me.

~ by elizabeth on June 12, 2009.