Discomfort Zone

I don't know if it's Age creeping up on me with its arthritic knees and shaky memory, or if Depression is trying to drag a dark blanket onto all my activities, or if it's just Winter nudging me toward the fireplace, toward a nap, toward my interior. Whatever it is, I don't want it.

I didn't want to go with Gale to hear Ann Patchett speak at the Writers in Paradise conference, even though I did want to. I wanted to stick with my comfort zone: dinner with Mike and Ruth on a Saturday night, like always. Except that I didn't even want to do that, and so I didn't.

One of my New Year's joys is to note everyone's birthday and anniversary in my new datebook. When I get to May and don't note Mom's birthday, I stop and add up how many years she's been dead now and maybe I tear up and maybe I don't. I'll see that my niece will be thirty-seven in August, and I try (and fail) to imagine my having a thirty-seven-year-old child. It's a pleasant stroll down soon-to-be-Memory Lane.

I expect to be slightly busier this year, and decided to get a datebook with more appointment space. I got it early, too, when the selection was best. This new one doesn't waste any pages on pretty pictures, knowing, as it does, that so many of us mean business. But when January came, I found I just couldn't get used to this new format, so I went back and got a different desk calendar. This one, it turns out, is smaller but has lines drawn in. Ah, that'll help.

Yes, except that I can't get use to it, either. It's too, too ... I don't know. It's just too small or too large or too tall or skinny or plain or something. Today's mail brought me my familiar and beloved Engagement Calendar from the Sierra Club.

I feel better, thanks.