When I was younger, my life was built around the number seven: seven plates on the dining table, seven Harry Potter books, seven seats in the car, seven letters in my name. Seven was the perfect number. It wasn’t too big or too small. It felt like all the pieces placed into a puzzle and all the pairs of shoes lined up perfectly against a door.
Seven was the number of my family. I looked for seven in everything we did. Seven piles of laundry. Seven pieces of salmon for dinner. Seven to-do lists of Saturday chores. I used to laugh and think of how amazing it was that our number was everywhere. If there were seven birds sitting on the grass at school or if someone had seven watermelons in a math problem, I would giggle to myself with a little secret happiness.
But then, I woke up one bright morning and my oldest sister had left for college.
I had known it was coming. Even as an elementary schooler, I had made plans to eventually do the same thing. What I hadn’t realized was what it meant for me.
Seven had become six.
Six felt wrong. The wrong number of dinner plates. The wrong number of laundry piles. It was a missing letter at the end of my name. So close, but not quite. I didn’t want six. Six could be factored and broken. Suddenly everything felt a little more dangerous. I started paying more attention as my next sister began getting closer to the dreaded graduation day, fearing what would surely happen next.
Seventh grade brought my cousin into our home, joining me in middle school. The seats in the cars were filled and there were the correct number of Saturday to-do lists again. A weight was lifted off of my chest. Finally, I had gotten away from sixes and was now back at a perfect seven.
But it wasn’t how it had been before. Differences in personality and interests caused conflict. Instead of the instinctive harmony that came with years of coexistence, there were feelings of tension, frustration, and competition. It took time and consistent effort for us to figure out how to live in sync. Eventually I realized that my cousin couldn’t fill in seven. She couldn’t replace my sister. She was her own unique person and I had developed a different relationship with her. She had become eight.
Eight wasn’t prime. It wasn’t the same number of letters in my name. It didn’t even match the number of dinner plates we were putting out. It was harder to maintain and it wasn’t a seven, but after time, I learned that maybe that was okay. I had been so occupied trying to keep my numbers at seven that I hadn’t even considered the possibility of anything greater.
After all, there are eight cupboards in the garage. There are eight letters in my last name. There are eight trees in our yard and there are eight Harry Potter movies. There were eights everywhere once I started to look.
So when I suddenly was left with five when my cousin moved back to Utah and my other sister left for college, I wasn’t nearly as worried. I still missed them, knowing that there would be significantly fewer sevens or eights in my future, but I could find joy in the numbers that remained. Eventually, when I could see them, it would be that much sweeter.
My brother left last year, leaving only four, and when I leave home, four will become one. One is very different from seven, but it can still stand on its own.
And besides, there are new numbers to be found.