Modern Life By the Numbers
I am twenty pounds heavier than last year and ten pounds heavier than I was the first time he told me he loved me.
There have been four men since him, and six new apartments. Two roommates, two cats, and one child.
Leaning into thirty-five, those numbers are scary.
They seem small in the scheme of things when the scheme of things includes light years and eons and something called a googolplex, which is actually a number so huge the mind cannot comprehend it and it has never been written down.
Now, ask yourself this: If you are facing thirty-five is it hard for you to believe that now you are halfway to seventy? That in the same time it took you to grow from an ignorant infant to the bumbling master of your own universe, you will begin to shrink, bend, and wither, and now your days count down to death?
I have three bank accounts, one car loan, five credit cards I owe on; utilities to pay to keep the lights on and the endless stream of media flowing flowing flowing, because a twenty-four hour news cycle, unlike other things, never stops.
I have three forms of insurance that require me to take thousands of dollars a year and light in on fire on the off chance that maybe if I am unfortunate enough to have myself or my things lit on fire I can fight for the money I paid to protect myself from disaster.
But the years and the numbers and the disasters keep coming.
Earthquakes
Katrina
9/11
Yemen
I don’t have the minutes
or the patience
to keep up with the
ruin and pestilence.
See this?
I’ve tried so hard to keep on counting but I have lost track of how many wars we are in, and how many millions of people have died so that just a few can fill their pockets with billions of blood stained bribes.
But there is only one set of numbers that matters now:
I have seven hundred and fifty dollars squirreled away but I need two hundred more before rent is due in five days.
Will there be enough?
I’m single mom, homeschooler, designer, constant reader and writer. I solicit pleasant comments, claps, and email subscribers.
Want to make my dream come true? Help me make a living writing.
