by Lisa Ryan
January 31, 2019
from The Cut
Nothing is more soothing to me than alphabetizing a disorganized bookshelf or ensuring that all the clothes in my closet are color-coordinated; my version of ASMR is images and videos of pantries becoming perfectly organized on Instagram. I’ve been in therapy long enough to know that this is how I manage my anxiety — when I feel like something in my life is out of control (whether it’s work or even just your typical existential dread), I can always depend on the healing qualities of organization to make me feel like I’m regaining power. And this is why I love my wall calendar.
It started out as a joke. In my mid-20s, a friend passed by a calendar store at a suburban mall and decided to buy me a Kate Middleton one, to poke fun of both my then-secret obsession with the royals and near-compulsive need for everything to be organized. Laughing externally at the joke, and internally feeling ashamed that my lack of cool was so commonly known, I hung the calendar up in my now-former apartment, right there in the kitchen I shared with a roommate. I figured it’d just be a jokey ornament, or something I could occasionally glance at to figure out what day it was en route to making Pop Tarts. I had no idea then that this calendar would change my life.