Lucky Number Twenty-Seven

Jess writes:

Today I turn 27 – oh boy – but it’s still my lucky number! And since it is my lucky number and since this lucky-number-age is occurring at a time in my life when so much is going on, I figured a short post might be in order. So here goes…

Twenty-seven has been my lucky number ever since Freshmen year in high school, when I was randomly assigned a volleyball jersey with said number. But, as with many things in my life that I have to come to love and cherish, I was not so thrilled about the random assignment at first. 27?!? What a horrible sports number! It’s too large of a number to be memorable on the court (my old sports number was always 4 – small, memorable… perfect!) and it’s too small of a number to be interesting (example: baseball players that choose something ridiculous like 88). Ugh. The assigned number, however, served me very well that year and with that 27 on my back I became a competitive player and moved up ever-so-steadily through the ranks of high school volleyball. Thus, I deemed 27 as my new lucky number.

And over the years, my love of the number has grown, in various ways, for various reasons.

Let me start with a rare, and somewhat scary, look at my brain’s left side: The number 27 is mathematically intriguing to me – I love the fact that it is only divisible by 3 and 9. I also love the fact that 9, conveniently, is also only divisible by 3! It’s like the entire composition of the number is meant to be self-sustaining, neat, and complete. Yeah, I know, it’s crazy.

Okay, now a look at the oh-so-wonderfully comfy right side of the brain: I love the way that ‘27’ looks – yes, it’s actual appearance – it has curve in the ‘2’ and angle in the ‘7’, but in a way that is much more complimentary than something so stark as ‘81’. Not to mention the fact that the number has a perfect bottom line in the ‘2’ and a perfect top line in the ‘7’, creating a perfectly complete shape! And if you think that is weird… wait for this one… I also love the sound of “twenty-seven”, as in the way that it is actually spoken! It’s both strong and aggressive at the start with its double ‘t’s, as well as soft and almost feminine with it’s ‘v’ and ‘n’ on the finish. And better yet, it’s one of the very few evenly-perfect, four-syllable numbers in our language (the others are those that also include 7 – i.e., 37, 47… 71, 72… etc.). So it sounds bolder than those silly two-syllable numbers like “fifteen” and far less cumbersome than those visually impressive numbers like “four hundred and fifty-two”.

(Ha! And to think there may have actually been anyone that was not aware of my completely off-kilter and obsessive nature… alleviated that uncertainty, didn’t I?)

But back to the number and, more importantly, what the age itself has come to mean for me. Starting in my teen years, 27 began to take form as the perfectly odd-integered oasis in my world of even-integered, overly-idealistic benchmarks. I would think to myself: By 24, I will have finished school, maybe even some higher degree, and I’ll be making my way towards my “adult life”; by 26, I will be getting married and settling into a cute little apartment in the city or an adorable home in the suburbs; by 28, I (technically “we” at that point) will be starting to think about a family and maybe already have little ones on the way; and finally, by 30, I will be “the real deal” – an educated, employed, and responsible adult, given the societal stamp of approval. Perfect, right? Well, at least that’s how my meticulously planned-out life looked in my mid-teen head. And to add to that, you see, the odd years in there almost always carried with them some frightening overtone: 25 had a quarter-century-ness to it that made me start to think about the whole “getting older” thing; and 29 had that definite “getting older” feel as the last twenty-something year and that meant I might have to face the worst possible fate of having not gotten it “all figured out” by then!!! (Yup, I was even obsessive as a teenager.) But 27 was just there, situated snuggly between school, marriage, a career and kids. Not too close to 29, far enough away from 25… what a wonderful place to be!!

And so now, having finally arrived at 27, how did it all work out? Well, not too shabby…

The school stuff was thoroughly completed, including another degree that I am extremely passionate about; the falling in love and getting married dream happened unexpectedly (but wonderfully) sooner and will always be one of the happiest times of my life; the whole settling down thing hasn’t quite panned out yet (my family is probably laughing at this part because they know how I feel about “settling down”)… you see, I gave into an insatiable wanderlust that has brought me to some of the most incredible places on earth – eventually giving way to the Peace Corps – and I just don’t know that I’ll ever have my fill of the world… so, therefore, some of those other benchmarks have been a little thrown off schedule. For example, the starting a family phase will probably not be quite on track as “Child + Africa does not = a great idea” and “Child + travelling only semi = a plausible option”. Similarly, while I have had the most incredible past few years delving into my chosen profession, my well-planned career path as become more of a well-manicured career field… with no real sign posting for “forward”, but a plethora of pretty wild flowers to smell along the way… so, for now, I’m just enjoying the walk [mom, that last part was for you…]. Thus, I doubt that I’ll be the truly bonified “adult” that I envisioned by age 30, as Adam and I spend most of our time dreaming about all the possibilities of future schools, future jobs, future places to live and future places to visit… and at some point in that dream we also linger on the thought of getting back to some civilization that has great cocktails and Happy Hour. He he!

But all in all, I would say that as my lucky number twenty-seven has arrived I do indeed feel incredibly lucky – lucky to have had all the opportunities to experience so very much. Most important of all, I feel overwhelmingly lucky to have family, friends, and a spouse that has encouraged and supported me in realizing all those dreams that I’ve dreamt since a young age. And thus, I’m not so worried about getting a little off-track anymore. In fact, I can honestly say that I’m okay with not being “the real deal” of an adult quite yet… because I’m realizing there are just too many other things about life in which to indulge… and eventually I’ll get it “all figured out” along the way!!

So, from 27-year old me, to the luck and karma of the world: go ahead and keep mixing things up a bit, I think I’ll be ready for whatever comes next.