I was in fourth grade when my teacher, Mr. Liu, taught fractions.
He
drew a pie shape on the chalkboard. (Yes, CHALKBOARD.) He asked us if
we would prefer to have ONE THIRD of a pie or ONE FOURTH. His impish
smile should have forewarned us that our answers would probably go
against our normal train of thought. An entire classroom greedily
exclaimed, "ONE FOURTH! ONE FOURTH!" With a swift flick of his wrist, he
divided the pie shape into thirds and fourths, showing us that when the
number 4 was a denominator, it took on a whole new meaning.
Over the years my math classes built on those fractions.
Two halves equals one whole.
Four quarters equals one whole.
All wholes can be broken into fractions of itself and then added back together to be a magical whole.
In everyday life, fractions are amazing: A quarter point in
our mortgage allows for thousands of dollars in savings.
Further down the road I
tried to apply mathematics to myself as a mother, as a wife and as a
contributing member to the human race and this is what I found: Numbers
apply to things, not people.
Allow me to illustrate: If
I do not have enough time in one day to join a PTA meeting, make dinner
for a friend, drive my children to various activities and write thank
yous to a half dozen people, then if I divide myself (mentally) into
four pieces and attempt to achieve all of these things, I will find
myself not cloned but crumbling.
Four quarters of a person do not a whole make.
Human beings are not divisible.
They do not have replacement parts.
They're
not made on a conveyor belt, one piece at a time. They're knit together
carefully and mysteriously in the womb, all cells attaching to one
another, building on each other.
You can't send your
scalp to your hair stylist without your head and body attached. If you
need to eat lunch, it's preferable to not just have your digestive
system sitting on the kitchen table. Best to arrive with hands and and
heart and head as well. Gross, but true.
More
practically: I have found myself giving wide girth to people on the road
who think they can text and drive at the same time. I see their eyes in
the rearview mirror looking down at their lap and up again repeatedly.
Down and up. Down and up. Unless there is something immensely
interesting on their seat... like a tarantula... I see no reason to not
keep eyes on the road, straight ahead, minding the two ton vehicle they
steer with their hands. In fact, I'm thinking about starting a petition
to have texting drivers pass a breathalizer test (text-alizer test?)
before they can operate a vehicle. Seriously.
Recently I
had 3 hours to myself in which I spent every last blessed one of them
setting up a bank account and ecommerce for my boutique design company.
At the end of the 3 hours, I marveled that I actually got it done. But
ever more than that, I realized that I had thought I could do ALL that
work with my preschooler in tow and maintain some level of mental
acuity. It took all my brain power to listen carefully to all my
financial institutions about passwords and credit card information and
setting up websites; how on earth did I think I could dole out lollipops
and granola bars to my preschooler while securing internet passwords at
my local bank?
It's a budgeting issue, really. I have
to ask myself: Do I want to be a whole person today or do I want to
mince my day into indecipherable fragments, allowing no margin, no joy
and no fun?
Perhaps my internal clock is a little louder lately, but I have no joy in showing up to life with half of me missing.
I'm here. And I'm striving to be wholly so.