I came upon a Youtube short just now that asked this question and I wanted to share my answer. The question asked was, “How do you see the months of the year? Like in your brain, when you think of our calendar, how do you see it?”

I see the months in a unique way. I have no idea why I see it like this, but I always have. Ever since I was a kid and even still to this day. I’ve never considered this to be a unique way to see a calendar until like a year and a half ago when I brought it up chatting with my dad. I visually interacted with my mental calendar as if I was creating a scheduled plan and my dad was caught off guard because it didn’t make any sense to him. I tried to explain and draw it and only then did I realize how weird it was.

In my mind, the months are visually squares, like a calendar, and I can even zoom in and see the days of the months (though slightly inaccurate because I’m not tracking the days of the weeks subconsciously). Additionally, I section it off into what’s supposed to be a 3(x) by 4(y) grid but what jumps out is that I’m not using the left two cells of the middle two rows. There’s only 8 spots filled in my grid, even though there are 12 months, and every month does fully take up a cell. So, I’ve got some TARDIS “It’s Bigger On The Inside” sort of thing happening here. I don’t want to just say “oh so it’s not a 3 by 4 grid?” because that’s not true, it IS a 3×4 grid. It just doesn’t fit. I’m not sure why.

Janurary is in the top left, number one, like usual. Feburary through May are all in the first row. All four months take up cell 2 and cell 3 in row 1. Keeping in mind that the size of the square that represents the months don’t change – they’re all the same size. If you were to draw this on paper, you would have overlaps or the squares wouldn’t be the same size. That’s not what I visualize. No overlaps, everything is the same size, and all 5 months still fit this 3 horizontal cell row.

June, July, August, and September do a similar thing. June starts BELOW May, with July through September following suit from top to bottom, all on the right-most column. They only take up the middle two rows for all four months. And like before, there is no overlap and all of the squares are the same size.

Then the last three months just make sense. We wrap back to the left column in the bottom row, and fill it in for October, November, December. December ends up being directly underneath September, which I think is normal for most people who see it in a 3 by 4 grid.

I simply found this fascinating and wanted to share it. Hope someone found this interesting! How do you all visualize the months of the year (even for non-Gregorian Calendars)?