And So it Begins

School starts in six days and I am already having anxiety.

Monday night I attended a parents’ meeting for Demigoddess the Elder’s debate team. Wednesday and Thursday nights were “back-to-school” nights at the junior high for the seventh and eighth grades, respectively. Next Tuesday Demigoddess the Younger will be attending orientation in the morning, and school starts for real on Thursday. Girl Scouts will fire up soon after that.

Right. Got it. Fine… except that I can’t seem to remember ANYTHING.

Last weekend when my mom asked me to pick her up from the airport on Wednesday night, I said “Sure! No problem!” Then, the next morning (after she had already left for New York), I remembered that, after a considerable amount of wrangling and running around, My Ho had acquired tickets to Wednesday night’s baseball game. I managed to work everything out, but not without the usual share of teeth-gnashing and garment-rending.

After three months of relatively unstructured summer days, I had somehow forgotten that perpetual gnawing twinge in the pit of my stomach, the one that says I think I’m supposed to be somewhere very soon, but I can’t remember exactly where, and I can’t remember exactly when, and I can’t remember how much it’s going to cost me or whose children I’m supposed to pick up on the way.

It’s all coming back to me now.

I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to be one of those giant four-color wall calendar moms. I live in the suburbs, yes, but I’ve managed to get this far without a minivan or involving the children in soccer of any kind. (Not that there’s anything wrong with those.) Call it a last, desperate attempt at coolness, call me an adrenaline junkie who is addicted to life on the edge, call it a case of tiny-kitchen-itis (there’s nowhere to hang one anyway)… I just can’t do the jumbo-sized calendar and colored-pen-for-each-member-of-the-family thing.

So at Target last night, I saw the Franklin (gack) Covey planners on sale and, with a sigh, threw one in the cart. Somewhere between there and the school supplies (inexplicably, after six trips through three different Targets, we still needed a binder and some folders), it occurred to me that I ALREADY HAVE a Franklin Covey planner.

I vaguely remembered receiving it through work last fall, and getting as far as the “inspiring, thought-provoking quotes from past and present leaders,” which were kindly included on EVERY FREAKING PAGE, before the nausea forced me to put the thing away… somewhere.

I unearthed it without too much trouble, but a quick thumb through made it clear that there was going to have to be some thinning.

I removed the calendar pages through the end of August, since, you know, I won’t be needing those any more.

I removed the “Roles” page (Who are four people who are important to you? Um… Ben & Jerry, Ron Gardenhire, and whoever invented Costco?).

I removed the “Renewal” page (Call each member of your family during the month. Read a book. Attend religious services of your choice. Good morning, I’m not all that into God or anything, but my Franklin Covey Planner told me to come, so here I am!).

I removed the 2009 and 2010 "Future Planning" pages (are you kidding me?).

What I have left is an oversized, faux-leather bound daily planner that, while not the four-color wall calendar, still feels like something of a defeat.

“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.”--Alfred Lord Tennyson