Goals! Lists! Calendars!

Everyone keeps saying how slow January was. Generally, when someone comments on the speed of the passing of time, I find myself agreeing (and obsessing over how WEIRD it is that the speed of a fixed amount of time, like a minute or a week, can be perceived to be slower or faster and that people can reach a consensus on that perception)—but this time, for once, I disagree. I feel like I woke up on January 1 and it was January 31 when I went to bed that night. January was like a short, quiet old lady who shuffled through the room without saying anything to anyone and later no one will remember what she looked like or if she even existed. Maybe we imagined her, we'll all say to each other. None of our descriptions match.

But if January was short and old and quiet, February is a hyperactive child with no boundaries or volume control. It jumped on me while I was sleeping, 3 AM, screaming incoherently into my ear so that I knew I should be freaking out about something but am undecided as to what, exactly. This is my least favorite feeling.

I need—need—February to chill out. There's not even anything happening in February. I don't know what its problem is.

In an attempt to keep this ridiculous month—and all of its potentially even more ridiculous successors—in line, I've finally purchased a 2020 calendar and a dayplanner and have plans to sit down at the beginning of every week and structure my life like a I'm a time architect or something, like the week ahead is a massive skyscraper that will topple and kill hundreds of thousands of people if I don't pay attention to every detail and get it all exactly right. Not to sound dramatic or anything. I might even get really annoying about it and set some kind of overarching goal for every week. Maybe I'll make lots of goals! I do like crossing things off of lists. 

I fully expect this newfound organizational verve and swagger to last for all of three weeks before it completely wears me out and I remember that I am disorganized because I don't have time to be organized, not because I simply didn't know what I was missing, but I expect those three weeks to be productive and calm and I will look back on them fondly and think, I should do that again someday.