The Number 5

I've been noticing my tendencies to do things in 5's a lot lately.

At work, I clean things in 5's. I fill boxes in numbers of 5's. I work on the 5th floor. Everything that I make has to be in an amount divisible by 5. I take sips from the water fountain in multiples of 5.

On the bus, I sit in the back left corner nearly every time. In the back of the bus, there are always 5 seats. I feel comfortable there.

At home, I kiss my teddy bear in 5's. I take out library books in multiples of 5. I make food that can be made in minutes which are a multiple of 5, like 5 or 10 minutes. When  I read, I read 5 pages or a multiple of 5 pages at a time. I don't like when the chapters end on numbers that aren't a multiple of 5.

My favorite bus to take is Route 5. It's one that I take to my doctor appointments and my church.

I don't like prime numbers. There's something so blank, so boring about them. I like to play with numbers and they are the most uninteresting numbers there are. They only divide by 1 and them self. You can't really "play" around with them.

When I was last in the hospital, I told another patient about my obsession with 5. I guess they noticed me doing everything in 5's, because they mentioned it later to me.

I don't know if it's obsessive compulsive behavior or what but I feel like multiples of 5 are organized. 5 is the easiest number to multiply by. I also like that the multiples always end in 5 or 0. Zero is one of the most interesting numbers that exists. If you study graduate abstract mathematics like I have, then you know how truly interesting it is.

I don't really know where my obsession with 5 came from, other than that I absolutely love numbers and I notice numerical patterns very easily, even abstract ones. I took graduate abstract mathematics courses without the prereqs and without being a math major and as an undergraduate. My professors both wondered what I was doing in their classes but when I started tutoring other students, they stopped questioning. I talked a lot with one of my professors about more in-depth, higher level material than was being taught in class because I was genuinely interested. Math is so elegant.

It makes you think. It makes you wonder. It makes you question... which is a lot like faith.