Calendar Girl

Once a year, my fav gal pals for over 30 years and I plan a “Girls’ Weekend” together. For some reason (some would call it anal retentive, that I’m a control freak or obsessed with having an official agenda, or chances are, all of the above), I am tasked with coordinating the weekend’s schedule of activities. I am always amazed at how challenging it is to find 2 out of the 365 days a year that will work for everyone in order to synchronize just 10 peoples’ calendars. There are 10 of us, all Moms, tied to our individual full-time “paying” jobs for at least 40 and too often up to 80 hours a week, commuting for another 10, then running errands, performing Domestic Goddess, Chauffeur and Mom duties, plus trying to find time to sleep and repeat all, in between. There are over 8,000 hours in a year – so why do we have so much trouble finding just 48 short hours within that huge overall number just to get together for one kid-free, husband/boyfriend/significant other-free, responsibility-free, calendar-free and insanity-free weekend?

Thinking about this, I pondered and thought that like the proverbial ball-and-chain, all of us seem to be weighed down by those deceptively pretty little calendars that hang by the fridge, in the office or stay tucked in the purse (but with easy access at all times) – the same calendars that are adorned with their peaceful-looking gardens, beautiful flowers, vacation views, happy cartoon characters, cute puppies or giggling, toothless babies – all decorated to match our kitchens, personalities or dream vacation destinations. Perhaps we think their happy, artful covers and perfect pictorial exteriors can mask the everyday chaos which is (with the best intentions) organized by day, by priority and in blue pen. Perhaps the tiny puppy with the big paws, little kitties tangled in a ball of yarn or drooling 1-year-old in a fairy costume will help subconsciously hide and ease the stress of the double-bookings, the travel schedule, the meetings and the dentist/doctor/PTA/appointments that we will forget, anyway, even though they’re circled in red marker (but also covered with a written scribble that no one in the family can quite decipher). Perhaps we will someday actually get to see the lake view that’s on the cover, in person -- that is, when there are two consecutive days on the calendar that appear to be ink-free. Ironically, these same tools of time management, calendars that mark the commencement of time with new days, months and years, that should give us a great big expansive view of the future and all the time we should have, also remind me that we’re on the calendar/day planner/”Blackberry” treadmill with too much we need to do (or think we need to do) with way too little time that is also going by entirely too fast.

Remember when time seemed to pass so slowly when we were adolescents? We couldn’t wait for time to go faster. We desperately wanted time to fast forward (not to mention skip over all those awkward/Clearasil/bad haircut years) to “beam us up, like “Scottie” in Star Trek and zoom us direct into adulthood, where seemingly, life was really glamorous, and more importantly without groundings, chore lists and Math homework and would ultimately provide the escape route from Mom and Dad’s roof and rules. We were told to take life slow and enjoy it, but unbeknownst to us at the time, we really did get there too fast. Out of our teens and in our twenties, time seemed to go at just the right pace, momentarily, that is. Then, just out of college and immersed in the beginning phase of another chapter -- perhaps we were starting a new career, a new relationship, a new shiny start at life, had endless lazy weekends, shopped or shared a chick flick with gal pals, had a real Saturday night date (which included wine, leisurely dinner conversation, eating with utensils and no fear of credit card debt) and Sunday brunches where we actually read the entire paper, not just the Target and grocery store ads (to see what we couldn’t live without that was at a discounted price that week). As I recollect, these were really the “pre-calendar years,” before time was no longer just our own and obviously destined to be short in demand. Becoming a slave to the calendar and day planners was not yet a reality or even a vision in the foreseeable future.

As a parent, I now understand how surreal that time warp must have felt and continues to feel for my own parents, as they turned the pages of their own annual calendars and watched me grow from a baby to a 40-something-year-old grown-up with a family and life of my own. If I can’t believe all this time has passed and I’m really a grown-up, surely they must feel the same way, too? How does it go by so fast? Why does that clock tick so slowly on the way to where we kids want to get to then so rapidly once it’s too late to realize we should have never rushed it in the first place? Guess that’s how whoever “they” were came up with the phrases “Wish I knew then what I know now” and “Youth is wasted on the young” came to be. (And, don’t you hate it when “they” are always right?!)

I secretly dream of getting rid of the Day Planner once and for all and living quietly in the cute little cottage, located in the field of flowers next to the babbling brook that’s featured in the month of April in my “Peaceful Settings” calendar. But, for now, I have to make peace with my own calendar entries that bleed from one day over to another and include double-bookings, scribbles, reminder stickers and post-it notes (often with cryptic and illegible messages) and make the most of those 8,000+ hours a year that I have, still with the hope that the second half of this lifetime doesn’t go by as fast as the first.

And, I will continue to plan the annual “Girls” get-together, coordinate our weekend’s schedule of events and outline the anal-retentive agenda for those 48 short hours without responsibilities and day planners that we have together. Because, those two days are indeed the only days of the year where we really can turn back time and the calendar reads “1978,” no matter what year it currently is. And, when it’s scheduled, the date will indeed be marked in the Day Planner and on the calendar next to the fridge, highlighted in bold print, underlined in red ink, and guaranteed – no double bookings.