791 Days, 13 Hours, 8 Minutes, 3 Seconds

Forget the seconds, then add up the numbers: seven plus nine plus one equals seventeen. Thirteen plus eight equals twenty-one. The story of my life. At seventeen locked in my room, curtains closed, in drugged sleep by the time my parents came home from work. At twenty-one, newly ensconced in New York, friends for the first time in my life. Seventeen plus twenty-one equals thirty-eight. It's been thirty-seven years now, and I still have some of those same friends. So I feel as if I've earned the right to hope. Seven plus nine plus one equals seventeen. Thirteen plus eight equals twenty-one. Mystics build the body of God with numbers such as these.