Kate Loves Math*

I’ve rewritten the first sentence of this essay so many times that I’ve now decided that this is it – here it is, the first sentence. It encompasses every level of my frustration - often feeling I was on the precipice of a revelation while simultaneously rolling my eyes at what felt obvious - as I dug into this friggin' four-letter-word: free

Where I've landed (for the time being 🫥) is that this (admittedly, self-churned) angst about the word free is so incredibly personal precisely because it is rooted in my own experience with the word. And I’d bet the same would go for you. Oh, the baggage we carry through the years.

Free isn't one of those words that you gotta pause before using it in a sentence because you need to deeply think about its meaning. It's an elementary basic word. Free is all about having autonomy and not being confined or constrained; there's a sense of space and openness about it. In mathematics, it's defined quite similarly - it's still about independence and having no constrictions - but there's also a constant association to be aware of what the value is of what is free as well as how that value is determined. Which is why I'm proclaiming that this word just brings up all the f e e l i n g s.

WTAF? What kind of math'centric essay is this?

I really didn’t want to write about loss. Though it is the feeling that’s dominating my thoughts and it seems like everyone (my everyone, at least) is emanating some sort of murky fogginess that is equal parts magnetic and repellant, I’d prefer to not add to what’s inevitably gonna be a pile of quicksand lest I get completely swallowed up by it, too. I need my wits.

Today though I have (finally) found a way to navigate this emotion while simultaneously feeling respect towards others’ individual reactions to those same situations and their choices they make as a result.

Because there’s something very personal about reactions, especially those born of the feelings that run extra deep, you know? The lows as well as the highs. Like, even though each of us may be reacting to the same event or situation where it’s an unsaid agreement that we’re collectively feeling low or collectively feeling high about it, we actually may not be occupying the same exact emotional position at the same time as that event impacts all of us.

I used to believe that we all travel on the same linear emotional path when it comes to reactive emotions; we’re just at different points on that path, at different stages. That’s how it is in the grief process, right? But now I think it’s more like we’re each moving parallel to one another as we experience, react, and make decisions.

I mean, I See You and how you are being over there, but our sinkholes are placed very very differently. How I’m (consciously or not) choosing to drag my feet over them or spring up & over them may also be different than your own movement. We're all existing in the same space and we’re headed in the same direction, it’s just that each of our paths are unique. Though we may all be receiving the same experience, each of our perspectives on that experience is...