The Months of the Year in My Head

The above is a visual representation of how the months of the year are organized in my head. Over the years, I've tried to think of other ways to lay out the months in my mind but nothing ever sticks. This is how it is and probably how it will always be.

January through May line up together all in one neat row.  Everything is orderly and neat until we get to the summer months. That's when things go astray. June is always below May but it's not directly below it. It's always slightly to the right. Sometimes it shifts way over to the right but it usually stays in that spot. June, July and August always stack up one on top of the other vertically. In my youth, those months always represented the freedom from school, warm weather, long days and fun trips. So it makes sense that if my brain were to break up the months that the summer ones would separate from all the others.

September has always been the most difficult for me to visualize. I can never think of it on it's own, only in relation to the month before, August, and the month after, October. I placed it to the left of October in the diagram above but it only exists that way when I'm thinking of September in relation to October. When I'm thinking of September during August, September is right beneath the summer months or skewed slightly to the left but still below. The first 20 days of September are technically summer and school never started right at the beginning of the month anyways so I always thought of September as an extension of summer. September is a transition month for me so it makes sense that it's a more mobile month in my head.

October, November and December follow the same pattern as the earlier months of the year, all in a neat row. Once the days of the year start winding down and we get closer to New Year's, I start building a new diagram in my head of the upcoming months. January is never right next to December. I have to jump up to the top of my diagram to get to it. I think it's interesting that although January follows December, in my mind the two are really far apart from each other.

How do you visualize the months of the year in your head? Do they follow a straight vertical or horizontal line? Do you stack them by season or by threes? Or do you have a weirder arrangement like the one I have above?