TODAY?

September is flying by as if it desperately wants to be over. I forgot something today. I even wrote it down, and STILL it slipped my mind. No. It fell out, rolled down a hill and lodged itself between two boulders behind a large tree in tall weeds.
I declined several invitations in favor, and anticipation of what I was supposed to do today. Today's date never even registered this morning. There was no trigger at all. No phone call, no email, no text message, no reminder. I wasn't supposed to need one. Today's plan has been in the works since May. I feel horrible about it. I'm exploring all kinds of methods to make sure this never happens again, but I was pretty sure I'd done all of the necessary things to remember. Apparently not. Were there unusual factors or sequences of events about THIS time? Does my failure to remember mean that it wasn't important to me? Is my plate too full? Crying didn't help, but I had a good cry for my forgetfulness. Letting down a friend is never the plan. I imagine my name will be "mud" for a while in spite of my past record of remembering. "OMG! Did you hear what she did? She FORGOT! How could she do such a heinous thing?"

I think I'll start reading Joseph T. Hallinan's book, "Why We Make Mistakes". I can understand how this happened. I just don't want to let myself off the hook just yet.
Maybe I should stop saying I'm getting old--even in jest. YESTERDAY, I had that feeling that I should be somewhere. That feeling clearly arrived a day in advance. It should have smacked me upside the head this morning.
It's worse when you don't even have a tragic, understandable excuse. I wasn't sick, no one died, there was no flat tire, traffic, traffic accident, road closing, earthquake, fire or flood. I simply forgot, and forgetting isn't one of those things that usually gets you a sincere, "I understand". Sometimes, you just have to welcome yourself to the human race.
There's some Malcolm Gladwell philosophies at work here somewhere. You really have to consider all of the little things. I could think of all kinds of reasons and scenarios, and what-ifs. It still doesn't change the fact that I can do nothing about it now except feel very badly--and go back to my old habit of writing things down on a very large, strategically placed, and of course, ARTSY wall calendar.
*SIGH*