Life Changes

I’m reclaiming my calendar. The hours, the days, the weeks, the months. 

My calendar has a new look. It has more blank spaces than entries. It feels quieter, uncertain. With the rhythm of a school year stripped away, it has lost its start date and there is no visible end. 

This calendar is no longer one of conformity, of dates to be adhered to, of repetitive weekly events that were not for me, not created by me but ones I had to follow regardless. A new one is adapting into an amorphous, more fluid form. It will have less structure and a freedom to be spontaneous. It’s mine to define.

And with any change, comes uncertainty. Of a future unknown, of a day with less shape. My life feels anchorless and a little adrift right now. 

For 25 years, my calendar has been dictated to me - from the earliest ante-natal appointment  to the sign and sing classes. From parents evenings to play dates and sports practices. From a diligent mother to a trusted chauffeur. It was every day and always. Even when the calendar was marked ‘holiday’, there was a restaurant to be planned and an activity to discover. 

And this dictated life was glorious and messy. The permanent noise and the endless laundry baskets. It was tedious and repetitive. ‘Again again’ on the swings in the playground to another walk along the same river trail. It was fractious and painful. Hormones colliding along the corridors of parenting with hurt words and bruised egos. 

But the life framed within a 9 month school calendar was marvelous. It created memorable friendships; some for a lifetime, others for a fleeting chapter. It shaped children into young adults coached by two of us who channeled an alliance to be the best team we could be. This was to be the longest job I’d ever committed to and one that had no break clause. Once started, the path pre-determined.

I loved this calendar and I loved the life it brought with it. The structure, the patterns. The annual repetition was comforting albeit evolving. As the years passed by, the entries were more notifications than participations - events to be aware of rather than be part of. 

And so that era is ending. A college calendar really only dictates the beginning and the end dates. Freshman hours, days, weeks and months are not mine to be captured. Those entries no longer belong to nor impact me. There will still be some fleeting highlights that are brightly marked on my calendar. Those dates will be excitedly anticipated as we all reconnect for a few hours or days, rediscovering the people we’ve become now our lives have been decoupled.

And that leaves my own calendar. Now staring back at me, with so much white space it almost creates snow blindness. 

But rather than feel sad, I’m energized by the blank space. I’ll sit with it awhile and look deeply into the depths of its openness. And the closer I look, I remember the glorious Grand Canyon at sunrise, its slow, gentle reveal of such intense beauty, it took my breath away. And this too will be the marvelous iteration of my new calendar - it’s all to be revealed - it will be magnificent, exciting and maybe, who knows, the greatest chapter yet to be written.