Now!

I opened my handwritten planner and started flipping backward through the pages. They were blank. That bothered me.

Color in my world is important. Not everything is black and white.

My planner has been filled with different colors of ink for years. The colors show what was filling my life that day. Red is medical. Always important. Black takes care of the necessities in life, such as going to the grocery store for food. Blue shows a little more of everyday life. Perhaps a night out to eat or a visit with a friend.

The more exciting colors are purple and green. Purple is me. My self-care time. Definitely an important part of my day.

And green? That beautiful green says, Welcome to your dreams.

A day in the park. Soaking in the sun’s rays. Deciding what art I feel like creating that day.

You may not need different inks to spot the things you look forward to. I live my days in color and love it.

When you look at my planner, you will see arrows, notes squeezed into corners and things crossed out. Neat has never been the goal. Life is not neat.

When I sat down to play catch-up and opened that planner, I found nothing but black-and-white empty pages. Those blank pages made it look as though nothing had been happening.

The truth was almost funny.

Almost.

Life overwhelmed the system.

Google Calendar had taken over. It was faster and easier when life became busy. Supposedly. What my eye didn’t catch was the color.

Google Calendar did its job. It told me where to be and what to do. Of course, it sent me those reminders too. There was always plenty. Life certainly hadn’t been blank.

With my paper planner, my eyes would quickly scan the page looking for purple or that special green line. There was something to look forward to.

And I certainly didn’t forget the green. That’s where the excitement came in.

Look over there. There’s green.

I’m going on a special outing. Maybe a picnic on the mountain.

The things I record in purple and green aren’t frivolous. Writing. Creating. Spending time with people who make my day better. They are part of the life I don’t want to miss. They matter, yet those things can be patient.

Now!

The harder part is figuring out where time for me fits when life doesn’t stop knocking at the door. I don’t ignore the red and black. Some of it needs me.

Life is complicated. A perfect time isn’t handed to us on a platter, and my calendar isn’t going to magically open up and say, Fill me.

So where do the things that matter to me fit?

You may not use colored pens like I do, but I wonder what your purple is.

There is a purple and a green pen sitting beside me.

I think they are both telling me it is time.