Planning Ahead Is a Luxury

Detail from my wall calendar, which in April 2020 had all colors, no code, because there was no-place to go.

In LBC (Life Before COVID), I was an avid planner-aheader.  I would be at the doctor or dentist or salon or mammogram place and always, always, always set up my next appointment before I walked out of the building from the appointment I just completed.  I do the same with Zoe's appointments and the dog's appointments, as well.  Then I'd put the appointment in my iCal, and when I got home, I'd write the new appointment on the wall-calendar and also in my planner.  Of course the appointment card would get snapped and kept in my photos on my phone, and the original would get stapled to the calendar on the appropriate month.  Just in case.

I never got into fancy planners with breaking out stencils and stuff.  I do a little bit of color-coding by who the appointment or event is centered around.  Nothing too crazy.  And I use stickers to pretty up a page on the calendar or in my planner, more for my own amusement than for meaning.  I have a system that works for me.  I don't forget an appointment, if I have it written on the calendar and backed up with iCal. 

Something about having a planned-ahead plan really does it for me.

Over the last few days, I've been going through my iCal schedule, seeing what's on the horizon, and I've scrolled through appointments that have been missed because the places I'd go for the appointments have been shut down.  I've noticed upcoming appointments that I made in LBC that have butted up against appointments with my therapist, that I can serve here at home, and calls for my schooling that I do here at home. 

Those appointments are all in the future, maybe by a couple months, even, but seeing those remnants of LBC next to evidence of Life Right Now sort of gave me a moment's pause. 

The appointment that really stopped me was Zoe's appointment with her ENT in July.  The last time we were there, it was March 10th.  Things were starting to get a little spooky up around Buffalo, but it really seemed like Life would go on as normal, despite all this Coronavirus talk.  Seriously.  I made her next appointment for July.  We talked about how, if the tubes in her ears didn't come out on their own between March and July, we'd have to schedule her for surgery in the fall to have them taken out.  It's been two years already, since they were placed. 

In a box-within-a-box kind of scenario, that discussion really messed with me on March 10th.  I didn't like the uncertainty of not knowing whether those ear-tubes would come out on their own.  I didn't like having to wait until July to know if we'd have to schedule surgery for the Fall. 

And now I'm wondering if we'll even have the appointment in July, and if we don't, then what?

It's funny.  Two months ago, on March 14, I figured things would be all back to the way they usually are by March 28.  Certainly by May 14.  We're Two Months into this thing.  It feels like Two Forevers.  As I sit here, looking ahead Two Months into July, I just don't know what to count on anymore, other than what's right in front of my face.

Back at the beginning of all this, there was a lot of talk about what the Pause was trying to teach us.  To live in the moment.  To appreciate.  To not take life for granted.  I haven't seen a lot of that talk lately.  I think I haven't seen that talk at all, now that I think about it.  We've all descended into a big funk, and I don't blame us.  When the present day feels like all the days in the recent past, and LBC feels like somebody else's life, you get a little sick of trying to find a lesson.  You just feel like Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, right around the time when he starts getting dark.  We're Dark Phil.  Just don't take the toaster to the tub. 

Ol' Phil eventually got himself righted and started to learn new things while he was Groundhog Daying it.  His ticket out of Purgatory was Getting It Right.  Karma, not Coronavirus.  Everybody's got their opinions on what's going to be our ticket out of Pandemic Purgatory- stay home and flatten the curve more, reopen, murder wasps...  Who knows?

What I do know is that planning ahead and being able to take for granted that the plans will come to pass as scheduled seems like a distant luxury.  A different life we hear tell about.  I'm looking forward to the day I can write stuff on my calendar and anticipate following through with those things written, instead of having to add an asterisk to that day and say "cancelled."

I look forward to having the luxury of getting to Plan Ahead again.  For sure.