Feel Like a Number

This week, I have been reminded how much I don’t like numbers.  I am not a numbers person.  I think it all started back in second grade when I just flat out didn’t understand subtraction and spent a good portion of the math time either crying or pretending I needed to use the bathroom.  As I got older, I learned to stay put during math, but I spent my time doodling or writing notes and folding them into complicated squares.  As an adult, I have not liked numbers because numbers typically mean money and budgets and stress.  Also, my children keep bringing home their own sets of numbers to work on, but somehow they are new numbers and there is no way I can help with that.  Well, maybe I could, but I just don’t do numbers.

I was given a number this week on a review which really took me aback and reminded me of the negative influence numbers have had in my life.  I did not agree with this number, I did not like this number and I was saddened, affronted and aggrieved by this number.  A stupid number gave me all of these words and feelings!  I went to bed sad and defeated by this number, but when I woke up in the morning, I was angry at this number.  This number is not me!  I am not this number!  I was able to talk to the person who gave me this number and tell him how this number made me feel.  I told him this number made me feel as though I failed, that this number personally hurt my feelings.  I told him I took umbrage with this number.  Umbrage, like I was Agatha Christie or the Queen of England, I took umbrage.  I did not get him to change his number, but using my words gave me back a sense of who I really am, what it is I am really doing here every day.  That can’t be measured in a number and my words helped remind me of that.  Stupid numbers.

Not the number I was given, but the disdain is relatable.

Yesterday though, I was shown that while numbers might not work for me, sometimes they make other people feel very special.  Yesterday was the boy’s first track meet and he has been working sort of hard towards it.  The boy has a lackadaisical approach to life so it is hard to say what working hard really looks like for him.  We all know that the boy has had a rough life with those crazy eyes and school is hard and he doesn’t do sports and while he is mostly good at trumpet, he’s not the trumpet rock star he’d like to be.  So I was nervous when he approached the blocks.  I was filled with trepidation as he knelt down and I entered into silent pleas with God that he just didn’t trip or fall or that he just ran hard and came in the middle of the pack.  I just wanted him to feel accomplished.  Then the gun fired and they took off and from the very start he was ahead.  He was not only ahead, he was pumping his arms and legs and SAILING ahead of the pack.  He was so far in front that when I tried to take a picture, all I got was the bottom of his foot as he flew past me.  He was all arms, all legs, all fluid motion and I was screaming and jumping and crying as he WON.  HE WON!!!!! 

I ran down to the fence, still yelling, still leaky-eye crying to see if I could get his attention.  He was in the middle of a pack of kids and when I yelled his name for the tenth time, he broke off and held up a blue ribbon in one hand and the number one with his other hand.  He was so damn happy and proud of himself and his number.  I was so damn happy and proud of him and his number.  His face was alit with joy like it used to be when he was little and I found myself so damn grateful for a number that could make him look like that again.  Me, grateful for a number.  A number that made my son feel for the first time in his life, like he could do anything.  That he was important.  That he was good at something.  That someone recognized what it is he can do.  That he was number one. That number, number one for my boy, is finally a number I can really get behind.