Wednesday, 1/6

 So what do I do with 2020's calendar? Burn it as a sacrifice, or keep it as history?

I changed the big wall calendar in my office yesterday. That's the calendar that kind of rules my life; I write down where I need to be when, and I follow it as closely as I can (or as much as I can when I actually remember to look at it). Normally, at the end of the year, I just chuck it (after all, there's not a big market for used calendars), but when I took it down yesterday I noticed so many things had been written down and crossed out, or X'd out, or just not written in, that it made me think--

Should I actually keep it as history of the strangest year in recent history, or bury it somewhere under a bunch of sage to make sure 2020 never, ever happens again?

As I've written in here before, I think we're all actually a little too close to the situation to determine what we should keep and what we should toss concerning the year just finished. It's hard to decide what to do about something when you're still experiencing it, and it's even harder to decide once it's finally over and you're looking back at it with a little perspective and/or post traumatic stress disorder. I'm sure in 20 or 40 or 60 years some great books will be written about this era.

I just don't know if any of us are still around that we'll want to read them.

Hence, the decision about what to do with my calendar.

I should just toss it. After all, I don't know of anyone in their right mind who would want to relive 2020 again. But I also know that what we lived through last year was history. Someday, someone is going to want to know what we went through on a daily basis. And while I'm not saying my calendar is the key to it all, it's also the kind of primary resource that people who dig into history are always giddy to find. I'm pretty sure that a calendar with a bunch of crossed out vacation and meeting dates wouldn't be the basis for a thesis, but it might provide a little context.

You never know.

Maybe, for now, I'll just roll it up and throw it in a corner. That way, I can pretend it's not there and not have the spectre of 2020 hovering over me. But maybe some day—some year—when the trauma has worn off, I can dig it back out, take a look at it, and then determine whether or not it might ever be of any use to anyone.

(jim@wmqt.com)