A Difficult Self-Assessment.

Compiling my records in time for the now-extended self-assessment deadline over the past week was emotionally hard for many reasons.

The fact the 2019/20 tax year crossed two cancelled Edinburgh Fringe runs - both outside of my control - was bound to make for grim reading, even outside of me losing my dad that year too. It's strange noting the mundane transactions leading up to his death and remembering what was happening then and what would follow. Every aspect was tough, with the pain multiplied by my mum's stonewalling behind the scenes that only worsened when I asked if I could buy her out of the house that we'd joint-inherited so I could live there instead of putting it on the market. And when I asked if we could at least draw up a temporary agreement to cover the month I went to Scotland so that her share wouldn't automatically fall to the person she'd secretly married a few months earlier without telling my dad, should anything bad happen while I was away - in fear it would be even harder to strike a deal over its purchase with my mum's partner than it was already proving to be with her - she refused point-blank, even when I said this meant I didn't feel safe to do Edinburgh. And even when I told her cancelling the run would still mean paying for it, which I was struggling to do already. And that's what happened, without her mentioning the cancellation - despite the big public fundraising push to help me get there (which she didn't contribute to) - or helping me emotionally (or financially) to do it.

So it was that a year's preparatory work went up in smoke along with the money I'd put aside to do it. And my current tax return reinforces this, with £10,000 lost, and me now in a position where I can't afford to do it again. This hurts a lot, not least as my next show - the one cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19 - was about my dad. It was important to me, and it aches to be in this position. And I don't know how to pick myself up again amid such financial and emotional insecurity. I'll just have to keep my head down and hope for the best.

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