I’m calendar challenged. You'd think a retiree would have their schedule sorted, but I keep missing birthdays, events, and even doctor’s appointments.
I'm not alone in this. My neighbors once dressed up for a charity event, left early for the 30-minute drive, and arrived 15 minutes ahead of time. They were the only ones there. Turns out, they were a week early! Better early than late, right?
Years ago I saw on Facebook that an old friend and co-worker had passed and her wake and funeral was on Saturday. It was quite a trip, but I always thought she was special. We donned our best funeral attire and drove over an hour. When we arreived the funeral home was empty. We scanned the various room signs looking for my friend’s showing. When the funeral director saw us roaming the halls he offered to help us. The funeral was the week before.
In community’s Lifestyle director moans about no-shows at events. She realizes with seniors things can come up. An illness, an unexpected doctor’s appointment. But many of the people simply forgot.
I keep three three calendars and still miss things. You’d think at least one of them would jog my memory. Synchronizing them at the beginning of each month doesn’t always help. I blame Apple for some of my problems. My Outlook calendar used to sync with my Apple calendar, but now I have to do it manually.
Sometimes I just goof. Sometimes I enter the event on the wrong day. Sometimes if I’m scrolling between months, I enter the event on the wrong month. And sometimes an accidental tap on my phone changes the date or time I so carefully entered and I might not notice.
Ongoing events are tricky, too. Our monthly book club switched from Thursdays to Wednesdays because several members played Mahjong on Thursdays. I scrambled to rearrange all my carefully entered calendar dates.
I envy my friends with one simple wall calendar. But how do they schedule things when they're out and about? Sure, the doctor hands me an appointment card, but it vanishes into the abyss of my purse only resurfacing after I’ve missed the appointment.
At our age, doctor’s appointments fill a lot of calendar slots. And if you have a spouse, and only one car, coordinating all those appointments is double trouble.
When I described my calendar issues to my friend she said, “ I have to write things down and look at my little pocket calendar all the time. I would forget my teeth if they were not rooted in my jaw. I went to the doctor once and they said they could not find me on the schedule for that day. Turned out my appointment was not until the next week. It is not fun getting old, but better than not doing it I guess! But I’m not the only one. My new furnace was supposed to be here a week ago and the installer got that day messed up. So I fired him and got a reliable contractor.”
It seems like we are all in this together!
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