Have you ever noticed how often numbers define our lives?

Couples, for instance. According to most, 1+1 = 1.  As in, one whole. As in, without the other 1, we'd only be 1/2 a person. Alternatively…accepting, even embracing, that 1+1 = 2 unique individuals who are whole and complete unto themselves. Or even that 1, and only 1, is often enough.

Let me put it another way...

I’m not one to weigh myself. I haven’t weighed myself in over two years. Lately though, I’ve had this little problem. My clothes have begun to shrink.

The fact that they’re smaller makes me wonder—now don’t laugh—if perhaps, I’m larger. I know, that’s ridiculous. How could I possibly be larger? But there it is. So, in contemplating whether this is possible, I’ve also contemplated the idea of weighing myself. A feat, which I might add, terrifies me. Plus, I’m totally against it, for I refuse to be defined by a number!

I believe I get this trait from my grandmother. Let me explain. A few years ago I took my grandmother, who is now 96, out to eat. We were sitting in our booth eating our pea soup and soda crackers when grandma looked up and said, “Look at all those old people.”

Look at all those—what? As in, older than—you? I almost spit out my pea soup!

Grandma continued to eat, looking up occasionally to shake her head at another ‘old’ person walking by, and I realized, in that moment, that my 90-something-year-old grandma believed she was younger than all the other gray-haired people in the restaurant. In her mind, the number 90 did not define her; she was still 35.


Paint-By-Numbers dress,
sold out of Schuurman’s Studio in The Netherlands

Which brings me back to my weight! I’m not going to weigh myself because I truly believe…Okay, sort of believe… I WANT to believe…that I weigh exactly what I did in high school. At least what I weighed shortly after I got married. Maybe more like what I weighed after I lost all that baby weight.

How about what I weighed 2 years ago?

Okay, last week. What I weighed last week. And since it’s the same, I don’t need to weigh myself. I just need to buy new clothes.

Right! Except I refuse to buy anything over a size____.

Numbers! Have you ever noticed how often they define our lives?