A change of agenda

I run my life using an agenda. "Agenda" in French is equivalent to the American dayrunner. The French are fanatical about office supplies, and every year my school would dictate just how many notebooks, what length of rulers, what color inks we would need. And when I mean notebooks, they would specify "Blue Clairefontaine 96-page staple-bound with lines" as opposed to the "travaux pratiques" which was 146-page wrire-bound with checkered pages alternating with blank pages for drawing. That is when my Agenda Scolaire Forum became imprinted as an extension of my self.
The agenda runs August to July, and so last week I ran out of pages. In my annual ritual, I called my mother somewhat frantically to ask if her local Leclerc supermarket had stocked them yet. Although these agendas as sold in the thousands, August is also a month where the average healthy French person has no business logging any items into their agendas, so no one there cares yet that the next one isn't out yet.
My agenda is more than where I jot my appointments, it is where I empty out my brain, it is my protection from anxiety. I can confide in it that I need to remember to bring gum to stash in my desk at work, I can jot down grocery lists or gift ideas for occasions long into the future. I empty my brain in it so I can function. And with the dwindling pages, I had to truncate my thoughts to single random words in a sort of staccato SOS. The last page reads "horse shoer, ped, sheets" and a bunch of numbers. Mostly I've had to rely on my memory.
My new agenda arrived yesterday. I am now in the process of de-briefing my old one and settling into the new. I can once again jot down what I want to quiz Google about next time I'm online, and the questions I want to ask the pediatrician, today is an avalanche of stashed thoughts spilling forth like a too-full refrigerator. Whew. The soft caress of good French paper on which the pen glides with ease. Every day its forgotten saint. Look, the number of days into the year we are, the number of days left, the phase of the moon. Profligate with words once again, and less anxious too.