Math is not my friend

This post is really about vulnerability.  I am putting myself out there to help people understand my brain.  So, don't laugh at me!  Okay, just kidding.  You can totally laugh at me.  Because I laughed at me.

Math is a concept that I am good at if I work at it.  I always made good grades in math.  But it DOES NOT come naturally to me.  Here is a story that helps illustrated how my mind does not naturally do math.

I was working on an assessment for work.  I had asked my client when her parents were born.  She could tell me their birthdays and how old they were, but not their birth dates.  So, as I was typing, I was trying to figure out their birth dates.  One of her parents was close to my mother's age, so I started by subtracting a year close to my mom's from 2013.  Then, because it was just a few years off, I quickly came up with her mother's birth date.  So, then I had to work toward her father's birth date.  He was significantly older than her mother.  I again picked a random year and subtracted it from 2013.  Not the right age.  So, I picked another year, and subtracted it.  Still not right.  I did this about three times before I realized that I could subtract his age from 2013 to get his birth date.  If you're not following this post very well, I was doing the math completely backward, creating a lot more work for myself, and didn't realize it for several minutes.

And that's how my brain on math works, folks!