One Line a Day

 I have been drafting a project charter, which is more interesting than it sounds. It’s like writing something into being. I worked at a biotech company many years ago, and the QA Manager had a favorite saying: “If it’s not documented, then it didn’t happen.” I could say the same thing about future events: If it’s not documented, then it won’t happen. 

Speaking of documenting, I have a little journal that has a title: One Line a Day: A Five-Year Memory Book. It’s a five-year diary, with short little entries for each day of the year, for five years--the same day on one page, so you can, I suppose, compare August 26, 2020 with August 26, 2024 and see what’s changed. 

My sister gave me the One Line a Day journal for Christmas, and I almost just put it on a bookshelf as a quasi-decorative item. It’s very pretty, with an abstract-design pastel design hard cover and gold print, with gold leaf trim on all of the pages. So it’s nice to just look at. But then I thought that it might be nice, as a project, just to add an entry every day. Too bad I didn’t have this last year. It would be interesting to see the difference between 2019 and 2020. 

Anyway, you see what’s coming, don’t you? Yes, the journal went from being just a nice, middle-aged sister Christmas present to yet another anxiety-fueled compulsive must-do daily task. I already write every day; I also already keep a little planner. So this is a completely unnecessary layer of documentary complexity in my already well-documented life. But it’s not that much of a burden, really. Sometimes one line a day becomes just one word; just a single word that sums up or expresses something about my state of being on that day. 

One day last week, I wrote a very cryptic entry, thinking that I’d look at it next year and see if I could remember what it meant. Joke was on me (as it always is) because I looked at the entry 48 hours later, and I had no fucking idea what I was talking about. The thought of encroaching senility is never far from my mind. I should write more about that. I should make a note. 

*****

Oh, I know what it meant! And it was funny, too. Gosh, I crack myself up. 

*****

Sometimes I record several days’ worth of entries at one time. Cheating, I know, but a person has to find efficiencies wherever she can. (And there is proof, in case any was needed, that I have been working as a Federal government contractor for too long, because no one other than a Federal government contractor would use the plural form of the noun “efficiency,” except maybe a real estate agent in New York City.) Until yesterday, though, I hadn’t written entries for any future days, only for the current and past days. Yesterday, I wrote on today’s page “First real haircut since January.” As soon as I wrote it, I realized that I really should have waited. What if I changed my mind? What if the hairdresser didn’t show up for the appointment? What if some catastrophe prevented me from showing up for the appointment? Then what? Then I’d have falsified a record, or I’d have to cross out an entry and write something else. 

To make a long story short(er), my long(ish) hair is now short(er). Not only did I avoid catastrophe, but I got a really good haircut. Or maybe it’s just so much better than the cumulative results of my own DIY scissor work during the last six months, that it just seems like a good haircut. Does it make a difference? No, it does not. I’m glad I wrote it down in advance. If it hadn’t been documented, then maybe it wouldn’t have happened.