I Number My Days

Lately, it’s been about counting. Years. Runs. Words. Work. Breaths. Days. Trees.

60 years - a number I may not have made. There was, among so many other near misses, that dangerous overtaking move I made in a dark blue Ford Cortina on my way to Mull in 1986 after finals. I was driving my Longest-Serving Friend, and I think Dave, Seb, and Richard. We were rushing to Oban for the ferry and the car coming in the opposite direction swerved to avoid us.

149 runs - it was meant to be 150 in time for my birthday, but storm Darragh intervened. I spent the night before wondering whether to try to find a Parkrun that wasn't cancelled but at 2am, saw the light, and decided that 149 is as beautiful a number. So instead of driving through wind and rain to Wolverhampton, I had a wonderful brunch (dry and warm) at Greenhouse Café with 15 of my closest running buddies. 850: the number of my token (and highest ever) after today's 151st Christmas Parkrun.

12,000 words - the number of words my novel has been stuck on all year. I lost my writing mojo in 2024, but I've found it again. Standby 2025, especially February 14th.

18 - the number of years I've spent at Wrexham University building a project which includes the voices of those usually excluded from education, from life, from being heard. A few days before my birthday, Outside In won an Above and Beyond Award for embedding Inclusion into the everyday life of the university. A day after my birthday, the group threw me a surprise party with more gifts than I could carry, some flowers that have lasted right up to today.

Breaths - who knows how many? But lately I've been practising Yoga Nidra as a way of grounding myself back into my adult self after the re-emergence of childhood traumas, counting breaths in through my nose, and out through my mouth. At first, I found this almost impossible to do. Now, it's becoming more of a habit.

24 - the number of my advent calendar, and maybe yours: a treat I bought in the dark of November. Each day in December, I've opened a cardboard drawer to find a gift to myself. Lavender salve to rub into my temples, geranium hand cream, frankincense oil to rejuvenate my 60 year old skins. It's taught me something about self-care that I don't think I knew before - how to treasure myself each day, regardless.

                                      

1 - the tree that came to mind in a therapy session recently. This tree is real and imagined, a safe place of non-judgement, acceptance, strength, solidity and power -  somewhere I can go, in my mind, to find all that I needed when a child, all that I need now to draw upon when I'm thrown back into child-learnt fears. 

And so I find I've numbered my days, counted myself into my sixties and up to this Christmas  Day. And what have I found? 

Love. A growing into love for myself I've never thought possible. A growing into receiving love from others I've never thought I deserved. A growing love for this world, with all its darkness, all its lights.