Numbers

Hi.

Is it bizarre to think that we are now over half way through this year?  Seriously, where has it gone?

I remember sitting in junior high band, listening to Mr. Reavis explain why each year of our life seemed to go by faster and faster.  He explained that since we're a year older every spring, each year made up a smaller proportion of our life.  Maybe that seems like an obvious statement, but to the junior high version of this girl, it was an astounding revelation that made the whole world make sense in that moment.

I've found myself thinking a great deal about numbers this week.  (This is abnormal for me.  Math kind of dropped off the planet when I graduated from high school. - Sorry, Mrs. Dare.)

I downloaded the YouVersion Bible app on my phone, and purely by chance (on my part) I started on the first of January.  Typically I read each day's portion during my lunch break at work, and at the end it shows me what percentage of the Bible I've completed.  Yesterday I reached 50.1%.  (Aside from having to read the entire New Testament in college and the collection of Old Testament books I had read randomly before, this is the most I've read.  Or maybe more accurately, the most I've read in succession.)

The other day I was wondering how many books I've completed since the start of the year.  I've slowed down recently, but I think somewhere in the 10 to 15 range.  (Too low in my opinion.)

I don't know the number of shows I've had the opportunity to watch from start to finish since January, and I don't even want to know the number of hours I've spent doing so.  I could probably calculate an estimate, but I don't think I'd like the result.

The list goes on: How many miles have I run?  How many meals a week do I prepare?  How many dates have we gone on?  How many fights have we had?  How many pairs of shoes have I purchased?  How many projects have I finished?  How many times have I had to get those highlights touched up?  How many blog posts have I done?  How many, how many, how many?

Maybe I'm thinking about numbers even more because my birthday is at the end of the week, and I'm thinking that 27 seems much closer to 30 than 26 did.  It's just like Mr. Reavis warned us.  Time has seemed to plow on without me.  I don't feel like I should be this age already.

(This was taken on my 6th birthday, otherwise known as the year I got a frog as a gift.)

I feel the need to take stock of where I am and what I've accomplished.  I don't want to get to the end of the year and feel like I've wasted it, much less the end of my life.  I don't want to look back and regret not doing more of what I loved or more of what really mattered when I had the chance.

I guess half of a year is still plenty of time.  Not that the first half hasn't been fantastic- it has.  But I feel like everything always has room for improvement, and that I'd like to rearrange some of those numbers to make them reflect six months of my life in a way I'd like better.

Some people think that New Year's resolutions are silly because people should just be acting on those changes daily.  Sometimes I agree with that.  I wish that every day I woke up and thought about how to make the most of it or what I needed to do to accomplish my goals, but the truth is that life happens.  We get caught up in the busyness and the mundane, and every once in a while we just have to reevaluate where we are.

So that's where I am today.  Staring down the big 2-7, with 184 days behind me in 2014.

Here's to the 181 days left this year!

Aim