Blaise Tapp: Our family calendar becomes yet another reminder of life rushing by
Earlier this year, the ever-so-organised Mrs Tapp, picked up an 18-month family calendar, which takes us to the end of 2026, and it has been a game changer.
I’m not normally one for paying attention to domestic aids - much to the annoyance of everyone else in our house, I usually pay little attention to forthcoming social events, particularly if they don’t involve either football or a date with a nice pint or two of ale.
However, with the introduction of our new expanded calendar, I now have an at-a-glance reminder, if I needed it, of just how relentlessly busy family life really is. Days and whole weekends between now and late next summer next year are already spoken for due to concerts, trips away, big games, work engagements and family events.
The trouble with calendars, especially the one in our house, is if an engagement is written onto it then that is it, it can’t be undone, which means that speed is everything because if you snooze, you lose. This is particularly difficult when, like me, you put everything off until the last minute and by then it’s too late.
Maybe my aversion to diary dates is also something to do with the fact they are another reminder of the rapid passing of time - we’re already looking ahead to September when Child Number Two starts high school, which seems impossible as it is only five minutes since he was taking his first steps while being obsessed with Peppa Pig. It also underlines how difficult it is to honour those well-intended promises of catching up with the people I'm in danger of losing touch with.
In the next couple of weeks I’ll start writing a load of Christmas cards and the vast majority will likely include a line about how we really should meet up in 2026. While I will genuinely mean it, the likelihood is that some of those promises will remain unfulfilled this time next year.
There are people I regard as friends who I haven’t seen since my wedding day 20 years ago but I’m certain that if we were to meet tomorrow then we’d pick up where we left off as that is how real friendship works. In a way that saddens me because the pace of life and the amount of commitments we all have these days means that there isn’t enough room on the calendar for us to maintain all the friendships that we want.