Question 365 of 365: What is enough?

My year hasn’t been about numbers. It has been about ideas. And thoughts. And change.

The curving mark that punctuated each day and made it memorable and archived was both the simplest and most incredibly difficult thing I have ever done. I would caress that mark and try and find the words that should go in front of it. Sometimes they would lay themselves out in front of me and sometimes I would have to seek them out. Sometimes my memories from childhood would call to me and sometimes the objects I was holding would provide the story. Each time, though, the mark would beg me to answer and I would obey, however reluctantly on some of these days.

These questions are my friends. They have kept me sane. They have shown me that I can reflect on the chaos of life without having to fully give up on participating in it. They reflect the drama and tension of figuring out a career or two. Of dealing with the death of a mother. Of sacrificing old dreams for new ones. These questions have seen me through the most important year of my life. And I will always love them.

I used to collect movie ticket stubs. I had this enormous stack of them sitting in my bedroom and any time that I wanted to, I would reach over and think about each one of those movies and the experience I shared in watching it. I would think about all of the people I saw them with and the moments of listening to music in the car while I drove to the art house movie theatre. I would fondle each one with care and look at the date and try to conjure up the weather and my mood and everything else that made the day special.

Each of my questions are better than ticket stubs. They aren’t reminders of the days events. They are the days transcribed through call and response. They are how I squeezed out meaning from the disjointed days that kept on coming. I don’t have to stack them up to know what they meant. I can read one and see just what made sense that day. I don’t have to re-imagine or put myself in those shoes. Those shoes slip on easily with every reading and I can get in and walk around. I will, too. As often as my new set of 365 days will let me.

And although my year has not been about the numbers, I am proud to have made it to the end. If I split up my journey into twelve chapters, these are the numbers that mean something: