Day 1 - Time

I bought a few new calendars for the new year. Half off at Barnes & Noble. Gotta love that!

I'm the type that likes a clean slate. A blank canvas. Fresh start. It makes it seem like so much is possible and creates anticipation of what's to come. Knowing that life can turn on a dime is what makes it exciting.

But....

It also makes it really, REALLY scary. One of the calendars I bought was a no fuss, no muss type of calendar. No cutesy pictures of kittens or flowers. Just a red, black and white thing with large spaces for each day so you can write lots of stuff in it. Good for busy people.

It also has something I've never seen in a regular wall calendar before. The last two pages comprise "year-at-a-glance" layout which makes it possible to look at all the days of the year at once. I thought it might come in handy for Greg to be able to map out his current and upcoming jobs with different color markers for the various types of work. We're! Getting! Organized!

After looking at if for a few minutes though I started to get that familiar, nagging anxiety again. I was looking at all of those days and months ahead for 2011 and it was completely freaking me out. How will I know if I'll even be around on March 4th or August 2nd or next Christmas? Maybe I'll DIE tomorrow and not get those days with my daughter or my friends or other family. Maybe Emma will die. Or Greg. Or someone else I love.

It's happened before.

Someone I love is here and I have plans to go to the movies with them the next day and then...they're gone. Not here. Life can change on a dime alright and suddenly you're in more pain that you knew existed just a few minutes earlier.

IT MESSES WITH YOUR MIND.

It's been a long time since that first loss. The first one that messed me up so bad. I imagine that most people think I should be over it by now. But the changes are forever and it's part of who I am now no matter how much counseling I get or how much I try to reason with myself or how frustrated those around me might get about it. It just....IS.

In 2011 I'm going to try to post every day. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. How many bloggers say that and it never happens? ALL OF THEM at one point or another. But it's just a soft goal. If I don't one day, or two or many more, I'll forgive myself. It's just a blog entry. It's not a tragedy. But I would like to write more. To explore what can be tapped out on the keys of my laptop - what I might discover about myself or others or life.

So, here we are. Day 1. Let's see what happens!