I’m being a calendaring weapon! (To paraphrase from my exam-studying daughters, who when asked what they’re up to, reply “Being an academic weapon!”) I’m being a calendaring weapon, trying to lasso May into some kind of manageable experience. All the usual slices of life, layered with celebrations and championships and recitals and finals and confirmations and graduations and throw in a few birthdays for good measure. Strike a buffalo stance and wield the whiteboard and I’m adding shit to the calendar like an SNL Belushi Samurai. Yay—it’s May. Maycember, Mayhem, Mother May I…please have a minute.
The older my children get, the more The Requirements storm the field, rolling in like The Nothing from The Neverending Story. I sometimes feel short of breath trying to keep up, hold on, and hang tight while letting go of these people of mine who will be fleeing the coop in only a few more Mays. I could be Atreyu, screaming into the wind pleading for wisdom from the Ancient One: WHY ARE WE SO BUSY? HELP ME MAKE IT STOP!” There are some serious systemic situations my Scorpio-rising soul would desperately love to change for this young generation, and yet, any revolutions I might design would not wave ashore in time to help my own teenagers. Therefore, all of my TED Talks on the topic are currently broadcast only on the most old-school and local of channels to an audience of mostly our basset hound, who cares exactly as much as you might think.
Am I repping for a generation for whom time and information have accelerated at a pace so unprecedented we are simply too time-warped to deal? Will our children’s children only ever know this new normal and have no older generations gawking and tsk-ing at the obscenity of the schedule? I should probably just get out my ‘back in my day’ lawn chair and proceed with storytelling about the free-range childhood of the 1980s, with all of its glorious hose drinking and street-light homecomings. The modern pace of time has made me antiquey; try as supplements and face serums might, time waits for no woman. I wonder if I’m on my own little island of feelings…but there are hints that it isn’t just me wondering what the hell is happening. Ever Google how many childhood psychology books were published in the 1980s? I have. The answer? Not many. And those that do exist have titles like “Child Nurturance: Volume 4. Child Nurturing in the 1980s,” and “How to Discipline Children Without Feeling Guilty.” In the last 90 days, the number of new parenting books being sold on Amazon exceeds 10,000. The number one bestseller from these last three months? The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Jonathan Haidt, March 2024). I’m pretty sure social psychologists were not prescribing our generation’s ails while we were still riding our bikes.
So, back to the matter at hand. What is to be done about the Calendaring Storm that is May with all of its peak performance? Can one Gen-X Mom Bastian up and imagine a slower life into being? Lest I sound unappreciative, let me add this disclaimer of understanding: Yes, May is full of wonderful moments that our privileges afford us—the privileges of health and work and ability and resources and talents and community. I am grateful for these privileges and I cherish these moments and milestones. But I also ache year-round for more unmanufactured moments. The unscripted, non-performative kind that comes from togetherness on days when there is nothing on the calendar. A special kind of Nothing. How can I claw back time from The Requirements and have more of this? Less Mayhem and more Nothing, please. Let me lay down my whiteboard, wave the white flag…and maybe even turn on the hose.
My kids are grown and flown now. The Mays full of recitals and awards banquets and all the May things are done, and while I enjoyed all of it...okay, almost all of it...the quieter pace is nice.