What I Want You to Know About the Calendar You Made Me

In anticipation of my upcoming birthday, you started working on a secretive project after school. It was one of those highest levels of classification kinds of birthday gifts.

And so what if your backpack was filled with sheets of construction paper every day for a week, some of which had the names of months on them? Or if you couldn’t help yourself and had to tell me midweek that what you were working on for my birthday started with a “C?” Or, even if you caved and told me on Friday, without any prying or provocation on my part, that it was a calendar.

None of that changed the fact it was top secret.

Perhaps because of this high level of secrecy, you couldn’t wait until my actual birthday, so you asked me to open it yesterday. I did, and I was absolutely, utterly shocked to discover it was a calendar.

Well, kind of.

It’s not one of those calendars that might help me keep track of dates, for instance. It’s not that kind of calendar.

What I noticed as I flipped through the months is that the days were listed in rows of ten, not seven, with exclamation points marking the end of the rows. Which makes some sense, I suppose. If you can make it through ten days in today’s world, that’s something to celebrate.

Some of the months had holidays and birthdays marked with “Yay!”

Curiously, my birthday didn’t get a “Yay!” despite it being a calendar specifically designed for my birthday.

Oh well. I’m more excited to celebrate yours, anyway, and that one is highlighted with a big “Yay!”

For March you put “Go Zags” in parentheses. You made the calendar after they lost in this year’s Sweet Sixteen, so I guess you are assuming I’ll use this calendar next year, and maybe every year from here on out. Probably a safe assumption.

Because here’s the thing I realized about this calendar. It’s a very special kind of calendar. One totally deserving of all the secrecy that shrouded its creation.

See, I realized as I went through it month by month was that it won’t ever tell me whether September 7 falls on a weekday or weekend. Nor will it ever tell me which days are federal holidays, or help me remember on what day St. Patrick’s Day or Canadian Thanksgiving fall. It won’t help me plan for vacations or schedule playdates, or know when to expect a new moon.

In fact, it won’t tell me very much at all about any of the days of the year.

It will only remind me how lucky I am to have each of them.

It’s that kind of calendar.