By all rights, I shouldn’t be writing about anything mathematical. Nothing about the entire subject makes any sense to me. Sadly and truly, I mean not a crumb, nothing at all. I am so mathematically challenged, that I am not at all certain I have a left lobe in my cerebrum. There are far too many rules that govern the subject. Math is too structured and illogical. I have survived quite well, always counting on my oversized right lobe to get me into and out of any scrape or adventure life can offer. It has worked very well thus far. The rules that govern the logic of communication have a rhythm that makes sense. I wouldn’t blink at a good argument with Beelzebub

However, as the sands of time continue to drip, I have discovered that there is a mathematical rhythm that makes sense. It doesn’t break any rules. It doesn’t defy gravity and allow the sands of time to run back up to the top of the hourglass, no matter how appealing that may be. There have, however, been times that the idea has been very absurdly appealing. Even with the best of friendships, wounds occur. Oh, that we could turn the hourglass over or reverse the sine wave in order to mend.

But even that, the wounds are a part of the sine wave. Indeed, it brings to me an added awareness of the gifts and the synchronicity that life offers us each and every day.

That structured oscillation is the rhythm of life and friendship. There is a mathematical formula for that:

                                         y(t)= A sin (2Pf+j) = A sin (wt+j)

There is a formula for everything in math and physics. For me, that is the problem. Life is not a formula from where I sit.

For those who share my left lobe challenge, a sine wave is a wave of oscillation across a midline median. Think of the bouncing of a spring. Think of highs and lows. The highs and lows have amplitude and frequency. The wave can be close together, like lightning strikes in the center of a thunderstorm. The wave can also be far apart, like the ocean waves at sunset.

But what it comes down to and for me is the absolute definition of friendship. Perhaps there is a way to come to a different but similar conclusion that combines it all?

                        y(t)= A sin (2Pf+j) = A sin (wt+j) = ❤

There was a moment recently where I read a blurb in which scientists recognized that if a friendship lasts more than seven years, it would likely last a lifetime. Apparently, lengthy friendships are rare and getting rarer all the time. People come and go in the rhythm of life. Hopefully, we remember them fondly. Other times we are willing to hold the door for them.

I have come to realize that I have the blessing of many friendships that can incriminate me with my childhood playground escapades at a cocktail party. They can regale with laughter some of my early choices in the dating game.

Of course, technologies beyond the telephone and postage stamp have played a large part. But, even before that, I had my “lifers”.

I call them my two o’ clock friends. If needed, and there have been times, I can call at two a.m. and laugh, cry, get and give advice and feel both real and the electronic hugs. It goes both ways, as does a sine wave. Even when the wave oscillates at low amplitude across the median, the heart connection is there. It is always there.

We have known each other through grooviness, definitely a high frequency oscillation. We have known each other through dorkyness and puberty; low frequency with a median that elevated and descended randomly.

Of course, in the path of our lives, through the daily mommy stuff and the administration of life, the wave still oscillates. We have our moments of annoyance, cookies and Chardonnay, stress and peace. Sometimes this can happen in the course of a couple of hours. That it happens and continues to oscillate and even when is what matters. That we have it, and when we have it, is what is the magic. That I have it on a daily basis takes the magic to a whole new stratum. Sometimes it is so ingrained we often we are simply not aware of it. Daily prestidigitation becomes as routine as checking e-mails.

That is how mathematics helped me. Awareness. Who would have thought? We get our lessons from whatever direction we need them to come from in order to be heard. Just keep listening. It is a heartbeat away.

The recent changes in my life have made me mathematical about my friends. I love my lifelong wavy friends, the ones who stay with our mutual heart connection. The connection is always there and omnipresent. It is almost sometimes idle, sometimes only whispering, like a sine wave barely moving. But it is there nonetheless.

I believe it will be there forever, long after we join the choir invisible whenever Gabriel blows that ethereal trumpet. When we cross over to the other shore, I think there will be a cocktail hour, a book club meeting, bridge club, shopping expedition, a golf foursome, a luncheon, or just one of my homies standing there with a bouquet of flowers and a box of tissue. Whatever is necessary will be provided. I can trust it will be there in someone’s manicured hand, arms open and ready to hug.

In this, I have discovered the magic of math. Albert Einstein said, “There are two ways to live: You can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle”.

But don’t expect me to ever grasp all of that algebraic stuff. And thank God for the people who invented online banking and checking.