everything counts.

What a week it has been. My MacBook crashed and needed a new battery. I lost my phone. I found out I have arthritis in my hips. There is a horrid smell coming out of my apartment building A/C so I receive a toxic welcome each time I walk into the building and hallway to my home. Lots of driving, too, which doesn't help the hip sitch, finishing off the week with a journey down to Kohl's to make a return only to learn their computer systems were down. 

A long list, counting one by one all the things that went wrong. 

Thank You for joining me on this episode of "Poor Me."

Oh! And then the money counting; realizing I had spent more than I made and coming face to face with how what I bring to the world is valuable, yet somehow not valuable enough to support a regular 'ol life.

What I do counts. Who I am counts. 

With each annoyance, frustration, sadness, negative storm cloud, I also had moments when I looked at the beauty around me, slowed down, took a gratitude inventory. 

Counting all my blessings.

What happens when the positive counts don't feel balanced any longer with the negatives?

The Torah portion for this week is Bamidbar, "in the desert", the first book of Numbers.

Counting.

And we are almost finished "counting" the days between Passover and Shavuot, a process of acknowleding the day and moving through God qualities, character traits...learning to be better humans.

Counting.

You can sort of feel like you're in a desert, untethered and alone when the world seems to be against you. I have a list of my life mistakes, and sometimes when I'm frustrated and upset and at my wit's end, I run down the list of how all I've done and been is just plain wrong. Forgetting what counts.

And then, let me count the ways ... the ways I have made good choices in those hardship moments, reminding myself I need not react, or project but can take a moment to choose how I'll respond. 

I found my phone, the MacBook repair isn't too too costly, Kohl's was only a twenty minute drive from home. And I imagine the smell from the building's A/C will dissipate. 

I'm lucky to have A/C, a car, a computer, a phone. 

Doing an accounting of how good I have it.

And they count, too - the humans, the bad days, the good days - every last thing does, and we get to decide how to, or how not to, make things count.

I guess I am good at numbers.