36.97916 per cent

Yes, I am still counting.  Perhaps we are always counting our way to something:  time to the achievement of a particular goal, time to retirement, time to when our child goes to kindergarten (or leaves for college).  We can look at it as an only, or even as not enough.  Me?  I am counting hours to the time I can take the licensure test for the LCPC.  Meanwhile I get hours that count toward a more complete life, somehow.  More hours to ride with other drivers, hours to walk the streets of Roselle and Glen Ellyn, hours to pay attention to who else is walking with me.  I get hours that don*t count in the time to licensure, but hours that train me nonetheless.  No, I am not yet convinced of this.  But I know I will be.

Yesterday I added up the hours

After two years.

I have counted

Everything possible:

Hours in my office;

Hours as chaplain

To the Daughters;

Hours with recovering alcoholics

In the halfway house;

Hours in the free clinic.

I have counseled life

And death

And everything

In between.

In the midst of it all

I have added the specialty

Of new dependence

And interdependence.

I know whereof I speak.

I know whereof

I counsel.

Yesterday

I added up the hours.

I have arrived at exactly

36.97916 per cent

Of what I need

To take

The next step.

My beloved tells me

I am over one-third there.

I consider four more years

At this rate.

I continue

To consider it.