Down for the count

I like to count. It soothes me and empowers me. I count steps when I walk. I count particular words when people walk. I count how many breaths I take in a given period.

Something I've done since my mid-20s is count when I'm angry. The idea came from the notion of counting to 10 before saying anything. I always count to my age. Growing out of the habit of counting to my age when I'm angry, has counting to my age when I'm waiting for a small amount of time. Web page taking a long time to load? I close my eyes and count. Just finished my morning constitutional and need to keep track of how long I'm doing each stretch? I count it down, well actually up.

When I'm counting to my age, I used to be superstitious that if I counted even one digit higher that the number would be the age I was going to be when I died. How the hell did that start? I don't know, but it resulted in my catching it a couple of digits past where I wanted to stop and continuing to count to at least 100.

I've always been a counter. When I was in high school, I would try and count to get to sleep, not always by ones. One fateful night, I found myself in the mid-20,000s and then had to stay awake counting just to see how high I could get.

At least I don't the key strokes it takes to write a blog entry. What's the point, since you can just click a button to see that information? There's no fun in that.