9.7 meters per second per second. G and I discussed what this means for over an hour. There were tears, and a few “aha!” moments, but for the most part, it was a mighty struggle. We had been watching last night’s news with Brian Williams (recorded through MythTV), and the “NASA bombing the moon” story was about to start. I believe that G simply uttered the phrase “9.7 meters per second per second,” and looked at me, querying. “What does that mean?” meaning, “I know the answer, now I want to see if you do.” Enter panic mode.
In 7th and 8th grade we studied astronomy (thanks, Mr. Zagriello!) as part of our science classes, and I remember learning about ::something’s:: speed as (insert random number here) per second per second, something that was really fast. A wide-eyed, “oooh” escaping our 13-year old mouths en masse. But here, in my living room, surrounded by warm felines, I could neither pluck the number nor the object from the recesses of my brain. With G asking the question eleventy different ways, giving me eleventy different scenarios (well, really only three), I was stuck in the middle, trying to remember the lesson of twenty-eight years ago and listening to my husband prodding me, trying to elicit an answer. He was really being so patient, his voice raising only a little bit more than normal, but his excitement/frustration was readily apparent. I was failing, both at remembering the long-ago lesson, and at figuring out the current problem. The noise inside my head was cacophonous, no longer only the astronomy lesson, but also now other guilt-ridden remembrances that, to me, screamed EPIC FAIL. Mostly school-related, spanning all the way back to kindergarten. Things for which I still feel shame.
I have been told by reliable persons, persons with knowledge of the subject, that my persistent feeling of guilt is completely out of whack for the deeds done. Yeah, that’s what they tell me, and I nod my head obediently, with a half-hearted promise to think about it, really, and “just let it go.” Just let it go. Sounds so easy, so reasonable, doesn’t it? Just let it go, and you’ll feel better, it’ll be off your shoulders. Move on to better things. Your life will be so much simpler if you can do this one thing, let it go.
Caught up in this cycle of guilt and wanting to please my husband by figuring out this childishly simple problem, I fell deeper and deeper into despair. My mind felt locked, and I was standing on the outside, curtains drawn tight, meanwhile a fury of a windstorm building all around me. I begged myself to remember the lesson, knowing that if I remembered it, somehow everything would fall into place and I would be able to answer him. I looked everywhere, rattling windows, banging on walls, but nothing would shake free.
Finally, G came up with an example that I grasped. “You owe me 10¢ per minute per minute until you give me the answer, agreed? Pretend that you’re putting it into a box. So, a minute has gone by, that’s 10¢. Now two minutes, so that’s…”
“Twenty cents.”
“Right, but it’s per minute per minute. So what is that?”
“Wait, 10¢ for the first minute, 20¢ for the second minute.”
“Now, how much is in the box?”
“Thirty cents…ohhh! So, per minute per minute adds each amount to the previous amount?”
“YES. So 9.7 meters per second per second is…”
“You are going 9.7 meters in one second…and then 9.7 meters more than that…”
My brain failed at that point. I couldn’t translate dimes to meters, or what it meant. The word “cumulative” escaped me. An age later, I was able to finally say:
“You go 9.7 meters in one second, and then for the next second you go 9.7 meters faster than the last second, and so on. It escalates.”
It took over an hour to get to that point. The frustration and sheer idiocy that I felt has dissipated some as I write this, because I’m proud that I was able to get it, and really get it and be able to extrapolate further, but mixed in there is this drumbeat: “you didn’t get it right away it took forever you are stupid even a child could get it he was feeding you the answer over and over you look like an moron…” and that is the voice that I hear most loudly. The voice that pounds in my ears every time I make a mistake. Every error is a tragedy, every faltering step is fatal. I feel so much anger at myself for even the smallest thing, and then I compound the feeling by sticking my head in the sand and pushing the problem away, hiding it/from it, hoping beyond hope that it will just go away and fix itself. That it will sort itself out. That’s why there are piles of unopened mail, phones that ring unanswered, walls with no paint other than the off-white that has been here since we moved in nearly three years ago, windows without curtains. I know that the solution to so many of these problems is to just face them down and take care of them once and for all, and there are some for which I am doing that, but others have fallen by the wayside, periodically poking up through the ether to make their voices heard, “I’m here! Just finish this and I’ll leave you alone! Forever!” I mean, really, the curtains and rods for the dining room are HERE for Pete’s sake. Just haven’t put them up yet. Constant reminders that I am not taking care of things, and that translates into “You are a BAD WIFE, A BAD MOTHER, AND NOBODY LOVES YOU.”
All of this, this noise, banging around in my head, while I try to figure out what 9.7 meters per second per second means. So silly, to hang onto all of the painful stuff. I mean, it sounds easy enough. Doesn’t it?
