Recurring Numbers

I’m not an astrologer or a big believer in ‘reading the stars’ or analyzing my horoscope. I can’t’ say I’m big on coincidences or ‘meant to happen’ events either. But at my advanced age, I’m coming to the conclusion that some things can’t be defined or explained, but nevertheless, have provided strange connections throughout my life. Patterns in my life seem to show a propensity for recurring numbers in my work and life experiences.

Now having hung out that disclaimer about the great unknown, I have over the years, found some strangely unique parallels in my own universe. For instance, in high school, members of our senior class went on a winter sleigh ride to the old Eaton’s Ranch in Dakota County. I can only remember my inappropriate clothing starting with my penny loafers, dress shirt, light jacket, no gloves or cap and suffering from the cold, numb toes and fingertips. I felt enough misery to take away any thoughts of romance (it was a coed outing) wafting over the snowbanks. I wasn’t even smart enough to ask ‘what the hell were you thinking?’ when I finally got home and started to thaw out.

Now fast forward sixteen years and Sharon and I bought our second home back in Apple Valley, exactly four blocks from the hills and dales of the old Eaton’s ranch site. I began to run those same hills and dales training for my first official foot race.

Jump ahead another couple of decades and, our daughter, Melanie bought a house in Highland Park, exactly four blocks from the house where I grew up in and the high school I attended. Coincidence, I have no idea, but it is a curious happening.

By now, I’m finding this ‘six degrees of separation’ a bit intriguing. Four becomes two in the number of years it took me, after high school graduation, to attend St. Thomas for two years, the University of Minnesota for two quarters, the US Army for two years, and another two years to finish up back at St. Thomas, escape to Europe and finally return to Minnesota and get my first real ‘grownup job.’

Then the number two morphs into the number three in the number of years it took me to settle into a real job, find my true calling in television, discover the joy of the written word and finally, meet ‘the one.’

Then another pattern appeared undenounced to me. There were scattered jobs interspersed in-between these important ones but the new pattern over the years became:

Working at KTCA television first time around for five years. Moving to the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting (with a slight diversion to Tennessee) for five years before returning to Minnesota. A brief stint at the Catholic Archdiocese in fund-raising before eighteen months at a small educational publisher. Then eighteen months at the worse job I ever had and finally a return to public television for thirteen years and finally out on my own.

I suppose I go back and research what kind of numbers pattern my life has cooked up since entering this last stage of writing but I won’t. Life’s too short to begin counting numbers over again. I like where I am in life so let the future begin and I’ll take it on a day-by-day basis.