More Problems With Time

My calendar abhors a vacuum. Whenever I manage to clear out a day, before I get a chance to be excited about having a chunk of time to myself, something comes up that I need to do then. I can hear a faint sucking noise as the calendar pulls new things onto its pages. I think I hear it snickering too. A few weeks ago, my husband realized that he wasn't going to be able to see our primary on his scheduled day. I switched appointments with him. All was well, except for the person in the doctor's office who had to struggle with it the computer program to make it work. And I wasn't able to take my husband's appointment, so I scheduled a new one. Three days later he was sent on a last-minute business trip, so I had to cancel that new appointment. The receptionist remembered the whole kerfluffle and asked if I wanted the appointment back. Well, I couldn't. During those three days that spot had been filled. All my life, I had carried an accurate image of the calendar in my head. I only put things on the paper calendar so life could go on for the rest of the family if I were ever in a coma. Recently my mental calendar has been trying for a new career as a fun house mirror, expanding and contracting at random. I'll be grocery shopping and suddenly think of the event I'm hosting this weekend. Why didn't I have the needed items on my shopping list? Trying to remember the menu, I grab everything I'm going to need. Sometime after I get home, I realize that the calendar in my mind had shrunk, moving that event two weeks closer than it really is. Conversely, I occasionally have to run around like a nut, shopping, cleaning (that means hiding excess stuff), and preparing food because the fun house calendar had expanded pushing the event further away in my mind. But the future event is suddenly here. Tomorrow. Sometimes even tonight. It all makes me a little crazy. But on the bright side, these sudden panics raise my heartbeat significantly, so I figure I've done my cardio for the day.