Mapping a Calendar

Commitments dot our calendar, making a kind of roadmap for our weeks and weekends. If Person 1 has to be at this place at that time, then Persons 2-5 can't do certain things, but have to do others. It is complicated sometimes, but we manage. What's interesting, though, is that many of the resulting pieces are NOT on the calendar. Like a roadmap, our calendar displays the high points--days off from school are like capital cities, events and parties are like smaller towns. Yet, like the map, the calendar doesn't tell us how to manage our days. It simply tells us what's there, and leaves it up to us to do the navigating.

Over the years, our calendar has ensured that I sent my kids to school dressed properly for picture day. It has kept us from being no-shows at birthday parties for which we RSVPed "yes." And when we wrote all our theater subscription dates on it, we saw every show we were supposed to see (let's not talk about when we DIDN'T write those dates on it!)

The difficulty about a calendar is that you have to follow it, just as you would a roadmap, in order for it to help you, and sometimes, when you are driving, or driving through life, it's hard to slow down for that, and particularly hard to see through the "capital city" dots to what it is you're actually supposed to DO in a certain place.

This weekend, we are doing okay with our roadmap. We got a child to a party, because the calendar said to do so, and we successfully figured out a transportation strategy to make that happen (and because of a rare early look at the calendar, we had the birthday present in hand days before the party). And we move on to the next calendar dot, making our chosen stops between points.

I am grateful for our calendar. It keeps me on the road, when I might inadvertently drive right off into one project or another. It tells me when I need to stop for an "engine check," so that our journey doesn't come to a complete stop. It signposts what we need to do and celebrates, at least on paper, what we want to do.

I also hate our calendar, because it reminds me of things we DON'T want to do, or things we have to figure out how to juggle, or simply weeks with way too many stops and starts. Like a roadmap, it tell us when we can't get there from here, at least not without managing some treacherous roads. Sometimes, I'd rather just drive, discovering things as I go, rather than anticipating them along the way.

This weekend, we have (at least so far) traveled a path that got us where we wanted to go, and forced us toward a few places at least some of us could well have skipped. But the points were on the calendar, so we hit them, and we are on to our next calendar line. Following a calendar, or a map, may not be easy, but it helps us get things done, even if we have to fill in a lot of the squares ourselves.

Want to know what our next trip will be? Just check the map--or the calendar.