What do all of these things have in common? Well, they are numbers. They impact my life in varying degrees. I am sure my math teacher/bodybuilder friend could find even more similarities. However, the answer is a bit less complicated and the hints are found all over my  blog.

6.3…to be exact, six years, 3 months and 27 days. Counting forward, this takes us to December 23, 2018. This is the day that I am eligible for full retirement. It also marks the beginning of my new career in private practice where I plan to work more as a life coach than as a clinical psychologist. I hope to be able to help girls and women with body image issues. I would love to help them make whatever transformations – emotional, cognitive, physical, or even spiritual – that will allow them to feel good about themselves. By then I will have completed many continuing education credits in sports psychology and hope to obtain certification from the American College of Sports Medicine.

17…probably easier to guess if you looked at the countdown calendar to the right of this blog. My STAAR surgery is in 17 days. I am still feeling relatively calm about this and am trying to approach everything in an organized fashion. I would be lying if I said I did not have any worries about details, see tomorrow’s blog about that. The most stressful part of this right now is trying to fight off a bug of some sort. For most of the week I have felt as though my body was working very hard to fight some sort of cold. I have been winning the battle so far, but appear to still be fighting it off. In fact, I sent an email to staff on Friday asking that if they were ill or a member of their family had come down with anything, they emailed or called me rather than coming to my office. Sickness does not fit into my schedule or plans.

And then there is 6. If you are reading this as a family member or friend, you can probably figure this one out. In six days, my beloved Auburn Tigers play their first game of the season. I am torn about this game and will watch it despite my discomfort. You see, the game is called the Chick-fil-A College Kickoff. While I love my Auburn Tigers, I do not agree with the very public statements this company has made about LGBT relationships. I do not believe that a restaurant owner – one who sells very unhealthy food (high fat and very high MSG) – one who contributes to the rapidly growing obesity problem in the United States – has any business opining about who can and cannot be involved in loving committed relationships. Many would say that I am compromising my morals by watching the game. To them I would say, I guess you are correct. However, I have never and will never buy anything from Chick-fil-A. I will try hard not to laugh at their commercials. And I hope that my Tigers reward my moral sacrifice by kicking Clemson’s butt up and down the field! War Eagle!!!

And I was reminded of one other very important number…15. That is the number of  days until we celebrate the 31 year anniversary of a wondrous event – the birth of my daughter. How on Earth could I have been so lucky? I must have done something really right in another lifetime!