Dismantling the Business

Cross-posted from LiveJournal

Andrew and I had a business partnership under the name Life Magic, an umbrella for our various activities: writing, publishing, healing, teaching, and psychic research. It ran at a loss in recent years, and at some point last year I changed its status to 'not trading' as Andrew was far too ill to conduct any business activities, and I was far too busy caring for him.

Business names used to be handled by the Department of Fair Trading, which has a branch within easy driving distance of where I live, and staff I always found helpful. Transactions were smooth and straightforward. Shortly before Andrew died, however, responsibility passed to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, with an administrative centre in another Sate and no local branches. Transactions must be done online.

After Andrew died, I went online to change my registration from partnership to sole trader, i.e. removing his name from the business, preparatory to changing the status back to 'trading'. I found the website complicated and intimidating. I attempted to make the change from partnership, giving as my reason that Andrew was deceased. I didn't think I'd succeeded. I eventually found a phone number, but was placed in a long queue at a time when I couldn't wait.

A few days later, to my surprise, letters came for both Andrew and me, acknowledging an 'incorrect transaction' attempting to make the change, and informing us that the only way was to cancel the name online and apply for it anew during a period after which it would become available to the public. So I made the cancellation. Andrew and I were both advised that had been successfully completed. (What part of 'deceased' did they not understand?) That was late May. I had until 5th July before it would become generally available.

I admit, I procrastinated. That website! Also I had one cold after another for a few weeks. 'Plenty of time,' I told myself. At the end of June, I thought I'd better pull my finger out. Oh-oh, I very soon discovered that I needed to state my ABN (Australian Business Number). Then I discovered that the one I had was for the partnership. I would need to apply for a new one of my own. I couldn't see where to do this, so I phoned the Taxation Office. I knew, during the recorded message, that the buttons I was hitting would not lead me where I wanted to go — no provision for that, as far as I could interpret the instructions — but hoped that once I reached a real live person I could be redirected. As indeed happened. A very helpful young man redirected me; another sent an email with full instructions on where and how to obtain my ABN online.

Problem — the site was closed for maintenance. This continued for a couple of days. Time was now getting very short. What would I do if I lost our business name? Hmmm, did I really need it? I realised there were options. I started to wonder if the Universe was blocking me for a reason.  So I pulled some Tarot cards and got a very clear message that to go ahead with the business name would involve me in struggle, for no real benefit, whereas to simply use my own name for any business transactions would be good in all sorts of ways. Among other things, I'd save myself the business name registration fee and a lot of ongoing red tape.

Finally I found the ABN site up and running. In fact, it seemed it might have been so earlier than I thought, and that I had been getting a cached page. But, 'no accidents', as both my last two husbands, Bill and Andrew, used to say. I had been delayed for good purpose, to get me to question the need for the name.

I was asked to verify that I was entitled to a personal ABN. I was directed to a page where I could check my entitlement. Yes, I probably am entitled, if only just, but it's clearly not mandatory. I asked myself, 'Do I really need an ABN? Am I in fact running a business?' I double checked with my pendulum. Both logic and intuition answered no to both questions.

I am semi-retired. I run a writers' group in a voluntary capacity, and do psychic readings at one Sunday market per month. Otherwise I see clients and students only according to the infrequent demand and my own inclination. I never stand to earn more than I am allowed to by Centrelink to augment my Age Pension. Even when I was doing three markets a month and declaring the takings to the Housing Department, I never earned enough to affect my rental payments. In the eyes of the Tax Office, the things I do would in fact be classified as hobbies.

So — no business name and no ABN. But what if I want to republish Andrew's books some day, not to mention publishing some of my own? Well, I can get a business name and an ABN then if it seems necessary — but in fact, people do publish books privately, under their own names. In any case, no need to decide just yet.

New problem — the Life Magic website. What should I do about that? Well, when I first set it up, I was unable to register Life Magic as a business name online; it was taken. The website is in fact a blog set up to function as a website. Life Magic is simply the name of the blog. I did get a domain address. The one I was able to get was www.nissen-wade.com — which of course will be perfect now for operating under my own name.

But hang on, I just had all these new business cards made! 500 of them, to a new design. Semi-retired as I am, I'm not going to get through them in a hurry. Well, luckily I used very cheap printing (yes, Vistaprint, and a darn good job they did). Then I looked at them again. The design has been revamped to give prominence to my name rather than Life Magic, now that there's only me involved. The Life Magic name appears, quite small, directly above the website  URL. I can argue, truthfully, that it's simply the name of a blog, not a business name.

So that is how things are. I spent much of yesterday making alterations to the Life Magic site, facing the fact that I must remove Andrew from partnership there too, reframing it as my own: Life Magic, the website of Rosemary Nissen-Wade. I had to delete and/or rewrite various bits of it. This felt quite confronting, for sentimental reasons, as it had been OUR site. However, he is no longer here. There is still some reference to him, as appropriate, but not in any ghoulish or disconcerting way, and he no longer appears as the joint owner/author. The truth is, I had been running it more and more, albeit with some consultation, as he became less and less able due to illness. 

It has a different email address from all my other blogs. I have now brought Andrew's personal blogs into my own list, under my email address, for easier management. (I plan to use them for his writings, and some day they will become archives.) I could do the same with the Life Magic site, but that could be a bit tricky due to the domain address, and after all it's no big deal to leave it where it is, with links to and from the other blogs.

That leaves our joint blog, The Truth About Fairies, which can't be de-Andrewed in the same way, as much of the material was written by him, or jointly. It must accommodate the fact that he's no longer with us, but address the practicalities more delicately. It's in serious need of updating anyhow. I'm working on it. I'll probably move that one to my own list as well.

What a rigmarole! But it was time. And so I take another step forward, out of a partnership which was both personal and vocational, into my own, single life.

Oh Goody, Another Stage of Grief

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages. I like the model which expands them into seven. As I have remarked before (and is generally agreed) they don't happen in neat, linear order — but the current one is new.

I'm glad to say I've never in my life suffered from it before, though I've witnessed how awful it can be for others. With no previous first-hand experience, it took me a little while to label it. I've been calling it boredom, apathy, emptiness. Every activity has been feeling pointless, every pleasure lack-lustre. I've even lost interest in the taste of food. 

Eventually these things started adding up and I thought to re-read the stages of grief. Ah yes, there it is, in both the five- and seven-stage models: depression. Those other things I mentioned are symptoms, and so are loneliness and reflecting on the past, which I've been experiencing too. It's not a very severe case, I suppose: not profound despair, just a kind of dullness. I was about to say, 'I haven't been feeling suicidal or anything' — but hang on, yes, those thoughts have crossed my mind recently. Only they too seemed uninteresting, nothing to take seriously. I would have expected them to be full of drama. Perhaps, after all, they sneak up, insidious.

Don't go panicking, anyone, please. I'm really not going to act on them. I couldn't leave my poor little cats uncared-for. I wouldn't so upset my family and friends. And it would let Andrew down. He was concerned about the cats when he was dying. 'The poor little pussy cats,' he called them then, wishing he could see them again. He relied on me to look after them. Even more, he wanted me to live my life and be happy; I know that.

Besides, I've just made arrangements to start seeing my psychologist again, a woman Andrew and I used to consult to help us through various situations in the past. How ironic to look back and recall our last appointment with her many months ago, when we were coping with everything so well that we didn't see the need to continue. Only a short time later his physical health began a steeper decline, and then the Alzheimer's became more pronounced ... ah well. Anyway, she's very good.

Oddly enough, it wasn't the depression which made me think of seeing her again, but a woolly-mindedness I've developed. I even asked my GP, the other day, to give me the cognitive test for dementia again. As he put it, I 'blitzed it in' with a perfect score, and I could tell while I was doing it that what it measures is something different in quality from what I've been experiencing. 

I have been told that memory gaps and absent-mindedness are symptoms of grief, and I had them more dramatically in the early days. As I say, it's not a linear progression; here they are, back again. So I thought I had reached the time when being with my grief and observing the process might not be quite enough any more. And that was before I realised I'm depressed! Now, getting help is looking even more like a damn good idea.

It's quite educational, actually, to observe what depression feels like on the inside — this degree of it anyhow. I don't want to find out how a more severe form might feel! 

Becoming a Little Old Lady

I was in Coles, considering which of two items to buy, and I felt my lips move forward into an expression that comes with that state of mind. 

In my head I could hear him say, 'I wish you wouldn't purse up your mouth like that'. (He said it only once, years ago, but it stuck. I know I have that habit.)

I started to soften my mouth again, then suddenly had the thought that it doesn't matter any more. There's no-one left to look pretty for. I can let myself turn into a funny-looking little old lady if I like. (As this is happening inevitably, perhaps the new attitude is just as well.)

I don't expect I'll seriously let myself go; far too vain for that. But it might be nice to free myself from some social expectations.  It might be nice not to fight too hard against reality, to just be whatever I am.

Realising I'm Not the Only One

This experience is so intensely personal that I am liable to forget how common it is. In that, being widowed resembles other great milestones of human life — first sexual experience, giving birth, facing death.... We must each experience these things as if no-one else ever had, because for each of us they are in fact unique. And yet, they are also so very common. We all get born; we all die. We don't all lose our virginity or have children, but many, many of us do, and have done over the centuries.

I become afraid of seeming self-centred, not so much here where the purpose of this blog is to record my personal experience of widowhood, but out there in the world at large, or at least in my community. I remember explaining to someone I'd just met that I'd been widowed recently. She said, a little testily, 'Yes, I was widowed two years ago,' and I realised I'd been talking as if I was the only person it had ever happened to. I imagine my personal grief to be more intense than anyone else's, my love to have been greater. But how can we measure grief or love? Both are subjective. I can only say this is my greatest love or most intense grief.

At the Life Writing group last week, we had to choose a topic beginning with the letter R. One woman chose Romance, and told the story of how she met and fell in love with her husband. She was unable to stop herself from breaking down at the end, as she read, 'We were married for 45 years; then, four years ago, he died in a tragic accident.'

'Is that what I have to look forward to?' I thought. 'To still be sobbing four years from now?' 

Ah, and why wouldn't I be? I can't imagine that I'll ever stop missing him.