{"id":282,"date":"2009-04-02T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2009-04-02T12:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2009\/04\/pre-birthday-math.html"},"modified":"2009-04-02T12:00:18","modified_gmt":"2009-04-02T12:00:18","slug":"pre-birthday-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/04\/pre-birthday-math.html","title":{"rendered":"Re-Calculating Depressing Birthday Math"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\"birthday-cake.gif\"<\/span>Tomorrow is my birthday. On Facebook I mentioned that I was beginning to fret over it. A friend asked if this was good fretting. And I thought, What is it, exactly, that has me crying in the bathtub each year around this time? <\/p>\n

And the answer is that I start comparing, counting, tallying. I told her “I judge myself numerically.” I guess having a number, a new number that I suddenly “am,” gets me looking at other numbers, something this English major’s brain doesn’t do very often. And the math is never good: <\/p>\n

New age:<\/strong> 36 <\/p>\n

Number of husbands or life partners:<\/strong> 0 <\/p>\n

Number of kids:<\/strong> 0 <\/p>\n

Number of books published:<\/strong> 0 <\/p>\n

Number of years left in which to change most the above if I or the universe so chooses: P<\/strong>ossibly 40, 50? <\/p>\n

Numbers of years left in which to have kids, assuming I actually have (and want) that choice:<\/strong> 5? <\/p>\n

Number of years left in which I will still be hot to people I think are hot:<\/strong> 5? 10? <\/p>\n

Number of years left to waste procrastinating or watching Friends on DVD or loading and leaving online shopping carts or complaining about the weather:<\/strong> 0 <\/p>\n

Now you can maybe see why the crying into my lavender-scented tub. This is not a good road, but it is nearly inevitable. Not being good at math or positive thinking (apparently), I add up the wrong things. So, if I improve at least how I lie with statistics, maybe I can turn this around: <\/p>\n

New Age:<\/strong> 36 <\/p>\n

Number of friends who love me:<\/strong> More than 50 <\/p>\n

Number of friends who were there for me when the shite hit the blades?<\/strong> About the same <\/p>\n

Number of men I have been in love with and loved by in return: <\/strong>About 9 <\/p>\n

Number of Grateful Dead shows I attended while Jerry was alive:<\/strong> 6 <\/p>\n

Number of years I lived in Maui, Hawaii: <\/strong>3.5 <\/p>\n

Number of fresh lychees, just-fallen avocados, newly hacked open young coconuts, and recently picked guava I’ve eaten: <\/strong>Countless <\/p>\n

Number of articles published in major national magazines: <\/strong>About 30 <\/p>\n

Number of icy lakes, rushing rivers, and salty oceans I have jumped in:<\/strong> At least 100<\/p>\n

Number of dark chocolate squares I eat daily: <\/strong>About 3 <\/p>\n

Number of Quaker silent meetings in which I have felt overcome by the holy perfection of silence: <\/strong>Around 5 <\/p>\n

Number of moments spent dancing to live drumming in which I felt like I was flying to the pounding, sexy heart of the earth:<\/strong> 5-ish <\/p>\n

Number of non-consecutive years I’ve lived in the greatest city on earth:<\/strong> 27 <\/p>\n

Number of times I’ve had my photo taken with the Butterscotch Stallion: <\/strong>1 <\/p>\n

That’s better, yes?<\/p>\n

How do you tally (or not!) your life? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow is my birthday. On Facebook I mentioned that I was beginning to fret over it. A friend asked if this was good fretting. And I thought, What is it, exactly, that has me crying in the bathtub each year around this time? And the answer is that I start comparing, counting, tallying. I told…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-valerie-reiss","category-holistic-living"],"yoast_head":"\nRe-Calculating Depressing Birthday Math - Fresh Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/04\/pre-birthday-math.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Re-Calculating Depressing Birthday Math - Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tomorrow is my birthday. 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She was a founding editor at Breathe magazine, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Women's Health, Natural Health, Yoga Journal, Lime.com, Vegetarian Times, and ABCNEWS.com. A native New Yorker, Valerie holds an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. from Beloit College in Creative Writing with a minor in Women's Studies. She also lived in Maui for a while where she drank green papaya juice and taught some creative writing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/vreiss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}