The Lost Days Daze

I'm back. I wasn't completely forthcoming about the full reason for my stress earlier. Something has me up now at 12:30 a.m. desperately wracking my brain to figure it out. I cannot sleep until I solve this mystery.

Am I stressed about packing everything for our trip on Friday?
No, that's not it. I haven't even started, but that's the last thing on my mind.

Am I, once again, juggling too much stuff with my son's crazy schedule and my own jam-packed life?
Well, yes, it is true that I have about 5 loads of laundry to do, teacher gifts to collect money for, a class party to organize and shop for, and a newsletter to put together before I leave in two days. But...that's not it.

Is it the general stress of the mood swings I've had lately, feeling misunderstood or lonely, or other thing that "weigh" on me daily (like my own weight)?
Nope, guess again.

OK, I'll tell you. Right now, I feel blind. I feel like I'm scrambling around hour-by-hour with no sense of where I am going, blindly groping and hoping I will find my next appointment, activity or that grocery list I had going.

Friends, I have lost my beloved calendar. And I am completely helpless without it. And, I am paralyzed in fear that I won't find it again.

I don't have fancy Blackberry or PDA. I subscribe to the old-school of thinking. Back in my working days, before I popped out a couple of kids and decided to stay home with 'em, I discovered the Day-Timer Day Planner. And, lo, the anal-retentive, list-making freak of a writer in me was happy.

I have adjusted my calendar type over the years, moving from the Day Planner with attached calculator and work schedules, to a nice handy family organizer. I buy the same one every year. It has a nice place to keep a running grocery list. Notes for each week on the let side of the spiral book and your weekly schedule on the right. Contacts can be written in the back, as can family birthday and special dates you want to remember. I even got REALLY clever and attached a plastic little envelope on the inside cover to hold things I need with me "on-the-fly" like fabric and paint samples (yes, I'm decorating obsessed) or business cards.

And I write EVERYTHING in this calendar. I even save my previous years' calendars for a few years, just in case I want to refer back to when so-and-so's birthday was or something lame like that.

This book has my life in it. And, without it I'm lost. As many of my friends will attest, having children has played a number on my brain. Gone is that "with-it' chick who remembered every detail of the latest software she was documenting on the job, and she has been replaced with a fumbling mom who is lucky to remember her own birthday! Folks, I NEED my calendar. I cannot function without it.

Hence, why I am not sleeping. When I headed to bed, I thought I'd remembered where I might have left it. I could have rested easy tonight, if only my brain hadn't popped another thought in my head a few minutes later disproving that location for the calendar. So, the third time I got up tonight, my husband (who I thought was fast asleep), mumbled, "You're not going to sleep tonight, are you?"

Awww, honey...you know me TOO well.
Now, off to look under the couch cushions for the THIRD time tonight...