Numbers
I’ve not blogged in awhile…i’ve been very busy with my new job (now four months in), and college. Most evenings i get home and flomp, utterly tired out from the day - both physically and mentally. I enjoy the job, and seem to be good at it. Considering i’ve spent my entire life hiding from figures i find it amusing that i work with them now (this is by accident)…i’m glad i’ve got this chance to slay that dragon of fear i’ve always had. Numbers used to make me cry very easily. Well, not the numbers themselves, but all of the emotional baggage i have with numbers. They have an ability to make me feel 7 years old all over again. Although my day is spent processing numbers, these numbers represent homes, and people.
Numbers can mean so many different things.
Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of my Nan’s death. Another number loaded with emotion. On one level i can’t believe 10 years has gone by, it still feels so fresh and raw. I can still hear the nurse phoning me. I was working on the other side of London at the time and I’d just got in from work after an hour and 3/4 commute. I didn’t believe what i was being told - i did truely believe she was either lying or had got it wrong. Nan was the picture of health a few days before. She might have been 102, but she wasn’t ill. I kind of thought she would go on for ever. The person i was living with at the time drove me over to the hosptial as i tried to get through to my two sisters to give them the news. Sadly, the nurse was right.
Nan was a grandma to me, a friend, and a mum rolled into one beautiful person. I tell myself of course it hurts that she has gone, how could such a huge part of my life be gone and i not hurt? Ten years on i’m kind of used to her not being here ( i would love to tell her all about the politics course i’m doing, and i know she’d be proud of me working in social housing…then there is Ray, he never met this person who nurtured me and taught me to fight social injustice…i really wish Ray had met her…although they would have made a good team at teasing me). The pain i’ve realised will probably never go, and that is sometimes hard to deal with.
Today at work people noticed i wasn’t my usual self, and when asked what was up my answer was “life”, because life is bitter sweet. Without the hardships and the pain, we wouldn’t appreciate the good stuff. I was grateful for deadlines today which meant i could just immerse myself in numbers, and hide in them.
