I hadn't even realized I had been in my current job seven years until a friend asked if I was sensing a "seven-year itch." All I could think of was the Marilyn Monroe film. Wasn't "seven-year itch" about flirting with the blonde upstairs? The phrase always suggested constant impatience and dissatisfaction to me. Maybe that is what my friend was sensing in me. In fact, I had already been sensing it in myself.
Later that same week, I was at the college union, ordering lunch at the snack bar. My sandwich and coffee totaled $7.77. "Better than 666!" the cashier quipped. The fry cook behind her spoke up, "Seven is lucky! It's God's number. The number of completion."
Something audibly clicked in my head.
Completion isn't the same as satisfaction. Although God may have had smug satisfaction on Sunday, I don't see completion as so self-assured or lucky. Completion might just mean That's over. That's finished. Now you need to get moving, girl. The number 7 isn't lucky at all -- it's a sign that when something is over, you have to move on. You may even have to start over. You just do.
So this spring, I counted my life backward in sevens....
--Seven years ago, in 2008, my first marriage ended tragically when my young husband Chris died suddenly of cardiac arrest in our kitchen one night after dinner. I moved to Greenville. I started my job as a English professor.
--Seven years before that, in 2001, I completed my M.A. in English, and Chris and I moved to Illinois so I could start my Ph.D.
--Seven years before that, in 1994, I completed my first year as an undergraduate English major in college.
--Seven years before that, in 1987, I completed junior high, and I learned that writing was my passion.
--Seven years before that, in 1980, I started kindergarten.
All of these events are tied to significant change, to say the least. Although most are connected to my education, or making transitions because of education, other shifts are tied to very traumatic change, loss, or moves. These increments of time do not so much mark completion as much as they pose the necessary and frightening question: What's next? The number 7 is really rather arbitrary here.... or is it?
Now, another seven years has passed, and I am two months from turning 40. The watershed is here. Actually, it's been on the landscape for a long time, but I wasn't really looking at it. I couldn't look at it. But now I know that it's time to acknowledge completion and say to myself, with no judgement, That's over. That's finished. Get moving, girl.
So stay tuned...
#urbanroost ;)
