Numbers?
I never even thought about numbers being apart of my life. I didn’t realize how much of an obsession they are for me. Well if you want to call it an obsession, I am not sure what to call it. I never even thought of it really until I watched a movie recommended by a friend. It is called “Mozart and the Whale” and it is about people with Asperger’s. A bit more than that but I will write my take on the movie on another post. I wanted to show an example of the main character with numbers because that is exactly what David does. Here is the trailer:http://video.filestube.com/video,c34ca9210081df6203ea.html
I on the other hand, have a different thing with numbers.
David likes odd numbers but I like even numbers. I want everything to even out. As I watched the movie it hit me that I too have a number thing. In all honesty I thought the number thing was a stereotype and found it offensive sometimes but now I realize there may be something to it and it is not all the same. I like to count by multiples of 2 or 5 and I find myself counting all the time. I try not to but I will catch myself counting as I am cooking dinner, putting lessons together, at a grocery store I will count the cans or boxes in the isles as I straighten them or take mental note of how many they have on the shelf and try to figure out if I will need to buy them all because they may be out next time I come.
If I hear an odd number I will divide it in my head until I get it to be even such as 17, I will think 8.5 and then I can move on.
If I cannot get it to even out I try to focus on something else and try to let it go. When I was a child I played with cards by myself a lot. I didn’t know how to play solitaire so I made up my own games. I would match the numbers, divide them, sort them by number, shape, or color. I would mess them up and see how quickly I could put them back in order from smallest to greatest and vice verse. I would flip them over and then add together whatever numbers would pop up and keep going until I got to the end of the deck. I like addition most and steer away from subtraction, though that is virtually impossible. Weird?
I count stairs when I walk up or down them.
I count the squares in the tiles of my home, stores, and side walks. I will count the lines in sidewalks. I find shapes anywhere and try to see how many different shapes I can find. When I worked at a retail store, I would count the reflection of the lights on the floor and see how fast I could count them down an aisle. I still do this sometimes when I am in a store. When I worked in the retail store, I memorized the sku’s of all the departments that I worked. I was promoted to the receiving department, which involved all of the departments, so I memorized the storage rooms for back stock, the lay out and the sku’s that each isle began with. I worked in a check cashing store and was surrounded by numbers and counting. I had to have everything in numerical order, I loved it. Although when I am under stress I tend to transpose numbers which caused some issues.
I see numbers in color.
When I think of numbers some of them have colors and some of them don’t. When I think of 0 I see clear or white, the number 2 is yellow, the number 5 is red, the number 6 is blue, the number 9 is black , the number 23 is green. Some of them are in difficult colors to explain, like the number 7 is something like a shining gold and the number 8 is like indigo. I don’t really know how to explain it. Some numbers have nothing like the number 4 I don’t really see anything. I also like to say certain numbers, I like the way they feel in mouth as they come out, like 16 and 18. No reason that I know of.
I never even thought of other people thinking about numbers or not thinking about them.
It is just what my brain does and I don’t think about it. I do tend to stare at license plates and add the numbers together or figure out if they say something. The funny thing is I can’t memorize those, I can’t memorize phone numbers, I can’t remember birthdays and that is why I have them all written down in my calendar so I won’t forget. David and I both forget our anniversary and it’s ok. I find that so strange that I can remember the sku’s of a huge retail store but not even my anniversary. Huh?
I see this awareness of myself as a good thing.
Now I can be more sympathetic toward our children if I notice it in them and help them to use it for their benefit like I did at work. Those kinds of things got me promoted and it helped me to be a very good employee. I have used it to teach the kids about shapes and counting. David uses his gift as well to teach the kids to see how math is in everything and it is nothing to be afraid of but to embrace. A lot of people say “I am not good at math” but we all use it everyday. I never noticed how math was such a huge part of our life, until I met David and what’s even funnier is I used to say “I am not good at math”. I am not good at school math I am good with using and living math, embracing the numbers and shapes.
