Flipping the Page

Are you surprised too when it comes time to flip the page of the calendar? My life's schedule is on my calendar--and if it doesn't get written down, I am bound to forget to do it--so I look at the calendar quite a lot.

Still, I am surprised when the month ends and I am found flipping the page for the new month again. It is like it sneaks up on me. Even though I know that the month is ending; it really shouldn't be a surprise.

This month snuck up faster than most. Perhaps it was the very long weekend for Thanksgiving that ended the month that makes it feel like that. Maybe, like my mom has always said, the time goes faster as you get older. I'm not happy with the inferred implication with that theory, but the time does seem to go faster.

I always feel bad for the folks with birthdays on my calendar that fall on the first of the month. I don't see them until I flip the page and then it is too late to send a card that will be on time. Today is newlywed nephew Travis' birthday. His birthday card went into the mail last night, about 9 PM at the post office, so it will not reach him on his birthday but probably the day after. I'm sure he will survive the oversight, but I'll think about it all day, and chastize myself.

When I do get to flip the page on the calendar, I enjoy the first moment of the clean slate feeling as I look and see almost nothing on it. Then as soon as I can enjoy that moment, things begin to fill in the boxes and the month is soon scheduled more crazily than the last. December is notorious for that. This week alone, already today, has only one empty square--and it is on Saturday, so even that won't last.

Not that everything on it is unenjoyable, or unrewarding; just busy. But "busy" on a calendar keeps me from being quite so "scattered" in person. So, I'll be mindful of the calendar and the commitments that I have there this week. I probably should calendar some "stop and smell the roses" time to get through this holiday month and still enjoy it. Well, that and not try to wander into any store parking lots. Good luck with that.