Calendar girl
Yesterday I copied all the birthdays and anniversaries from my 2010 calendar onto my 2011 calendar then added the old calendar to my stack of those I've saved for years -- every year since 1997, to be exact.
I abhor packrats and do my best not to be one, so holding onto reminders of dentist appointments and "No School" dates of years past may seem in opposition to my cause. But the old calendars are so much more than appointment reminders: They are time in a bottle. Snapshots of the hustle and bustle of a once busy household. A record of the good, the bad, the scary, the sweet -- an organic record that didn't require me to journal or scrapbook or keep a diary or update a blog to maintain it.
Most of the markings on the grids of daily happenings are in my handwriting. Others are in the handwriting of one or another of the girls, applied in painstakingly perfect penmanship befitting an occasion important enough to be included on the family calendar for all to consider in their schedule.
Each notation holds much more than just a record of where we had to be and what time we had to be there, though. They hold stories, stories that bring mostly grins (birthday parties and school sporting events) and groans (dentist appointments and work schedules). Others cause my eyes to well up, my heart to grow a little cold, and a lump to form in my throat. Those are the notations of occasions that serve as poignant reminders of our challenges, the growing pains that strengthened our family fabric and made it the resilient, tight-knit one it is today.
As I skim the calendars before placing them back on the shelf for another year, here are some of the scribbles that touch my heart:
April 28, 1997: "Closing" - This is the date we officially bought the house we rented for 10 years before finally getting up the nerve -- and the income -- to ask our landlords if we could buy it. It's the house that became the childhood home of our three girls, the place we raised them all, from kindergarten through college.
July 21-25, 1997: "Brianna in Texas" - Brianna went to Work Camp; we remodeled our new house to add a fourth bedroom while she was gone. Andrea and Megan rejoiced at no longer having to share a room, no longer having to divide the space with duct tape down the center. Jim and I rejoiced that the bickering would end.
May 25, 1998: "Andie leaves" - Andrea spent a week at Sea Camp in San Diego and to this day still dreams of working with dolphins. Somewhere. Somehow. Which is a tad challenging considering she lives in the Rocky Mountains.
March 22, 1999: "5:30 a.m. Brianna skiing" - Clinches the heart a bit as Brianna will likely never ski again after the damage done to her back when her (stopped) car was rear-ended at a stoplight by a landscaping truck.
April 24-25, 1999: "Retaining wall" - One of the many "huh?" markings on the calendars, important at the time but now completely forgotten.
October 15, 1999: "UNC College Day" - Our first visit to check out a college for our first-born.
July 18, 2000: "Test w/HR 2:30" - The beginning of my newspaper career.
July 28-29, 2000: "American Co-ed Pageant" - Megan needed college funds and left no stone unturned. She won no pageant money but we both received an unexpected -- and unpleasant -- introduction to pageantry and "pageant moms." Believe me when I say Little Miss Sunshine resonates.
October 25-27, 2001: "Seward" - Our first visit with Megan to what would become her college town. And eventually Andrea's college town.
June 22-27, 2002: "Disney World" - Our last vacation as a family. <sniff>
June 29, 2002: "Marked words: Brianna will NOT be with Eric at this time next year!" - Too funny now. What's not funny is that marking one's words doesn't make things magically come true ... or eliminate the need to keep marking them.
May 25, 2003: "Andie's Graduation Party" - My baby, my last daughter, graduated and soon off to college.
June 27, 2003: "I'm old" - Any guess as to whose birthday this was?
July 22, 2006: "Meg's wedding!"
June 18, 2008: "BUBBY!" - Okay, it doesn't really say "Bubby," it says his real name. An all-caps pronouncement of joy just the same.
December 5, 2008: "D-Day!" - This was the day my layoff was scheduled ... and occurred. The end of my stint as a special sections editor. The end of my newspaper career.
Sprinkled throughout the calendar pages, amidst notes about the girls going on mission trips, attending prom, graduating from high school and college, are red-letter dates of concerts and performances that Jim and I were to attend: Pearl Jam, Live, Tommy, Black Crowes, Rent, Counting Crows and more. Memorable occasions all. But my pile of ticket stubs serves as a better reminder of those particular dates. And, yes, serves as another large stack of paper this non-packrat refuses to get rid of.
On second thought, maybe I am a packrat after all. A sentimental packrat with lots of memories worth holding on to.
Today's question:
What do you do with your old calendars?
Monday, January 3, 2011
Reader Comments (15)
I love this blog about your calendars. I throw mine away. My special events and memories I document elsewhere.
I do the very same thing with mine. I've got them from 1985, the year our oldest was born.
On your Oct. 15, 1999: we are HUGE Tarheel fans!
On your June 29, 2002: We've been marking those words with our youngest...and, finally, success! Of course, this could change, but we're very happy right now!
It's cool that you keep your old calendars. I could see you doing just that, being the sentimental loving mom and grandma that you are!
I throw them all away, except one. In fact, I came across it just the other day when going through pictures. It was a handmade calendar of the month of September 1982. I drew a big grid so I'd have lots of room to write. September 22nd was the day my son Glenn was to be born (C-section so it was scheduled) so I wrote down every move I made or needed to make for the entire month. I was a cub scout leader and in a book club at the time, as well as having a 9 year old who had 9 year old activities. I look at it now and cannot believe how busy I was in my 9th month of pregnancy. It makes me feel a bit lazy at my schedule these days!
I keep some of my calendars. I think it depends on what was going on that year. I did keep the one from last year because I made it on Shutterfly and it has all our pets in it.
I toss them out after transferring all the birthdays, etc. to the new one.
I give you alot of credit for being able to keep all those calendars!
I also transfer birthdays and anniversaries onto my new calendars....then I take one last look thru each month just to remind me of what I did all year and then I shred the them. I always have a calendar from Hawaii so I usually keep a few pictures that I can't live without and put them in a frame for my home.
I can't remember the last time I looked at a calendar. My graying hair is the only thing I keep track of on a daily basis. I see time as completely subjective as it treats everyone quite different.
I love this post, Lisa! I don;t know why a magazine somewhere hasn't found you, and your writings, and offered you to write a special interests column!
My husband has been making our official calender every year for many years with a program on his computer. When the year ids over he files it away in his filing cabinet, sort of a memento of a sort, like you do! He usually includes some family photos from the year before as a header, so it's a keepsake.
Our last family vacation was in 2001! My son graduated from college and my husband took us all to Italy for a month to meet his family and show us the town where he was born. We visited aunts and uncles and cousins that lived from the very north to the very south of Italy. It was a trip of a lifetime!
I wanted to let you know that I thanked you on my blog for the Hallmark recordable book I won from your Christmas give away! Thanks again!
Okay, you know what's really, REALLY weird? Yesterday I wrote some stuff on our calendar and I thought, "wouldn't it be cool if a person kept a really good record of everything that went on in their life each year and then kept each calendar?" Seriously. I actually thought that. And then I thought that I don't know how many times someone would go back and look at it but it might be fun for kids or grandkids to look back on one day.
Anyway...that probably answers your question. Mine go in the trash. But then, we only record things like our house payment schedule. I'm not sure I'd necessarily be interested in looking back on that years from now.
This is fun to read as we are cleaning out my mother's house and deciding what to keep and why to keep it. We all are sentimental. I found all her old calendars, saved as you had, and looked through them. They were a record of living life, as you say. I decided to keep them for now, and you encouraged me in this decision! Happy New Year!
I used to send them somewhere and it's driving me crazy that I can't remember where. People would use them to create flashcards for kids with learning disabilities. Especially if they have animals like different dog breeds, or interesting places around the world, they would make a great learning tool.
I collected a whole pile last year, but darned if I can remember where it was I sent them. I did give our one with motivational sayings to one of my son's teachers. I figure she can cut it up and use it in her classroom. Guess that's the best I can do this year.
My favorite gift every Christmas is a calendar from my kids with pictures of my grandkids from the year before, so I definitely save those....though I have to admit I'm not all that good at filling them in with activities the way I should. I love that you have that record of all your girl's activities.
I always get a Mary Engelbreit calendar. I love her drawings. I would save them all because I couldn't bare to recycle them. I was sure I would frame them all someday. Well, that all changed this year. I'm trying to declutter (is that a word) my life and they went in the recycling. I'll just enjoy the one for 2011.
I save mine too--I look at them as journals.
Thanks for your kind comment on my blog. And I forgot to add one thing I do with calendars--especially the larger, pretty kind. I save them and use them for wrapping paper. They always make for an interesting package! And nice heavy paper.