Calendar Girl

I am officially back on the calendar. No, not as Miss January - as in I am ready to acknowledge the existence of days of the week and dates and months and all that. I have been allowing several emails to pile up in my inbox; emails from co-workers, parents of my students, and parents of my tutoring clients mostly. They want to know when I am free to do such-and-such or what I think about this-and-that decision. I have partially been avoiding responding to them because it has felt too overwhelming, but mostly because I am not ready to make appointments. I don't have a planner. For the past 2 months, I have never known what day of the week it was. Sometimes, in Europe, I'd walk outside and see that most everything I wanted to see that day was closed and go, "Oh shit. It's Sunday again." And then when I came home, I had to remember that I was having lunch with this friend on Tuesday or supposed to pick up my photos on Thursday - stuff like that. But I certainly have not been ready to make committments more than a day in advance, and the only reason I even knew it was halfway through August was that my paycheck was deposited on the 15th (thank god).

But today, after a meeting with my boss to solidify my un-quit status (much to his delight, I must say), I drove to Staples and bought my teacher plan book for the year. Wow. I am afraid that you all might not truly appreciate the weight of this action. For the next 9 months, this book will be my lifeblood. I will write everything in it, from what math lesson to teach, to who's homework I'm still missing, to doctor's appointments, and sometimes even just doodles and stray stickers. This rectangular piece of plastic and paper is my committment to live where I'm living and do what I'm doing at least until next June. Now I can reply to those emails and say, "Yes, I'll be there next Monday at 11," because I have somewhere to write it down.

I humbly bow to the gods of days, months, and years, and acknowledge that what they have made is good. But I'm still not going to write anything down more than a week in advance. . .