This Time Last Year

This time last year I wrote:

Have you ever had the feeling that you’ve forgotten
something? Well, for me, today, that’s how I feel - not that I’ve forgotten
something mundane like to brush my teeth or to turn the furnace down before I
left the house this morning – but that I’ve forgotten something of paramount
importance.

I have scoured my calendar, it’s not my mother’s birthday,
it’s not anybody’s anniversary. Today I didn’t have any appointments scheduled
at all. My office calendar is clear too. All of my bills are paid in full, and
there is still money in the bank for the next round.

Yet, I have this feeling in the bottom of my stomach that
at any minute someone will pounce on me, leaping out of the shadows waving a
calendar or an invoice and shouting “You forgot! How dare you?”"Well, the Ides of March are come. Ay, they are
come, but they are not gone."

And, strangely enough, that's just how I feel today. I haven't had any major upheavals in a while. There's nothing particularly gruelling about being Heather Sisman, not right now anyway.

Since Christmas time I've successfully navigated my way through some bad weather, a couple of bad dates, a few business meetings, a couple of good dates and an old knee injury that keeps reminding me that it's there. For a couple of weeks I worried about a relative who wasn't well, and another who was. Things have finally settled down.

I spent eight hours in two airports on Friday. I had been in Montreal for a business meeting and stayed over on Thursday evening. My 7:45 pm flight was the only one I could book using our company's online travel booking tool. My meeting was over by 2:30, so the Ex-Lax man drove me to Trudeau airport where I changed my ticket for a 3pm flight. Apparently it was snowing in Toronto so my flight was cancelled. The lovely lady at Westjet did some fancy typing and got me on a 4pm flight that was subsequently delayed, then cancelled. Then there were rumours of a 6pm flight.

At that point I thought all was well, I'd still be home relatively early in the evening, and a little bit of snow had never stopped me before. My 6pm flight was delayed till 7:30 (fifteen minutes earlier than my 'later' flight) - but, due to some delays, we never boarded the plane till past eight o'clock and finally were airborne around 8:30.

I was safely on home turf by 9:30 pm. Sadly, my luggage never emerged on the baggage carousel till closer to 10:30. I rode home in an airport taxi wishing desperately that the man in the driver's seat would notice his own white knuckles and just let me drive the car already. He never took his eyes off the road, which is a good thing given the snow that was still falling, and I didn't walk through the front door till nearly midnight.

All's well that ends well. So why do I feel like there's still something I've forgotten? Last year's 'unsettledness' (which I doubt is a real word, but it's the perfect word for right now) never amounted to anything. I only hope that this year it's the same!