Wow. When you sit down and figure out the number, it's really, really high.
Now, before I get into anything, just let me say the number to which I'm referring isn't anything important. It's not Earth-shattering, it's not deep or consequential, and it's not a number that will change anyone's life, much less your own. It''s just one of those numbers that popped into my very weird head.
That being said, Loraine and I are coming up on the 14th anniversary of living in our current apartment. As I may have mentioned in a blog about a year ago, it's actually the place in which I've lived the longest my entire life, which is saying something. Of course, one of the reasons we've lived there so long is that it has a perfect location. We both get to walk to work, we have (almost) everything we need within a radius of a few blocks, and apart from neighbors who like to light campfires, set off fireworks, and use leaf blowers all day long, it's been a great place to live.
We live three blocks from where I work, and I hike along that three-block long patch of sidewalk quite a bit. So when I was making hike home from work yesterday I started to wonder—just how many times HAVE I walked upon that sidewalk? So I started thinking (which, as we all know, can be a dangerous thing), and this is what I've figured out.
On average, I make two round trips a day, either to & from work or heading downtown. I actually think it may be higher than that, but let's go with with the average of twice a day, just to be safe. That's 730 trips down that sidewalk a year. I've lived in my current apartment 14 years, so if my math is correct (always a dubious affair) I've walked down the same piece of Front Street sidewalk 10,220 times.
10,220 times!!!
My mind, for some reason, can't wrap itself around that number. I mean, it knows that I've walked down the sidewalk, past the lilac trees and the lawyer's office and Peter White Public Library a lot, but over 10,000 times? That's just too high of a number to comprehend, for some reason. Yet it's true. Even if I haven't noticed it myself I've walked down the same patch of sidewalk over 10,000 times in the past 14 years. And without realizing it I've probably absorbed more information about the walk that I've realized. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if I could make the entire walk blindfolded and know exactly where I was or exactly which crack in the sidewalk was coming up.
That's something I'd actually like to try some day, except for the idiots driving through the 4-way stop sign at Arch or skidding through the intersection at Ridge. Close off the streets and I'm sure I could walk to work no problem at all.
It's funny; I'm sure there are many other things I've done more than 10,000 times in my life, and haven't given those a second thought. But for some reason, I now know I've trod upon the same sidewalk for 10,220 times. And on that note, I must wrap this up, and get ready for the first leg of my 10.221st round trip.
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