Calendars: Just Jot It January 1, 2019

There’s a calendar here in my bedroom – the perpetual kind with movable wooden tiles to set the month, day of the week, and date.

It says Saturday, July 19. Yeah, I kind of got distracted and forgot to change it. I could now, but my daughter wants me to keep it that way until July 19 rolls around again – a date 11 days after her fifteenth birthday, and 10 before my fiftieth, as it so happens.

There’s a calendar in our dining room, too. From it, Lin-Manuel Miranda stares out at me with adorable intensity, next to a quote that involves being a self-starter, from a musical a friend is taking me to next August 13 (not that I’m counting the days or anything….).

It’s last year’s calendar. I meant to take it down all day, and squirrel Lin off somewhere so I can save the quote and his adorable A.Ham intensity – but I was living life, and it hasn’t happened. Besides, for the first time in three years, I don’t have a Hamilton calendar. Instead, there will be one from the local pizza place. It’s got American landmarks on it, from what I can tell. That’s all well and good, but I’ll miss my Haminspiration this year.

The first blog post I ever wrote was titled Dates. You can read it by clicking on the title. It was first written on LiveJournal, but I moved it to my old Blogspot when I started it.

The turning of the calendar, when we actually get to the point where we do that here, will bring us closer to January 12 – and the first complete year since Jim died. A year since I lost a husband and best friend of over 20 years, and my children lost an involved and loving father who was also a friend to them.

It’s momentous, this anniversary. It’s 365 days of living when he didn’t, of learning how to live this way. It hasn’t always been neat and tidy (okay, it hasn’t often been neat and tidy). We’ve adopted a shelter dog and a five week old puppy within 6 weeks of each other. We’ve got a new roof. We’ve got lots of other work left to be done on the house. We’ve done a lot with the car….not so much with the yard.

The kids have grown in the way teenagers do – as much in their maturity as in size. I’ve grown in ways that might not be so easy to see – even while losing a little of my extra padding.

It’s not the life I would have chosen for us – and I wouldn’t have chosen death for my Accomplice, and certainly not before his 54^th birthday. But it’s the life we have, and we’ve decided to make the best of it. There’s happiness and joy to be had, and shared.

May your day be joyous – and the year that follows hold wonder and delight!

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s Just Jot It January – a month of jottings. Today’s prompt was to write what you want – and calendars are what came to mind, so that’s what you get.

Photo by Bich Tran, courtesy of Pexels

Join in or read other Just Jot It January posts, and stop by tomorrow for my next installment!