Accounting was never my strong suit. The whole spreadsheet was off by $409.38.

Nobody else noticed. Or if they did, they’d decided it was close enough. Close enough. That’s a phrase I don’t trust. So, of course I went back through the cells one at a time, looking for the one number that didn’t belong. Not because $409.38 was going to bankrupt anyone. That number just wasn’t right, and once I saw that, I couldn’t unsee it.

That’s most of what I do in my relationships. I notice one thing that doesn’t add up, and it’s tough for me to leave it alone.

I used to think that made me difficult to be friends with. Maybe it does. But I’m starting to think it’s the same instinct that makes me fight for a friendship after the other person stops calling. Or keep working on a manuscript long after “good enough” would let me quit. Or write the same blog post three times because the first two sounded like somebody else, not me.

I’m starting to think attention and loyalty aren’t so different. Maybe they’re the same instinct pointed in different directions.

When I pay attention to people, I remember all of them, those who showed up and those who didn’t—the phone call, the silence where conversation should have been. I remember each encounter longer than is convenient.

Writing isn’t much different. I can read a sentence twenty times knowing something’s wrong with it. Maybe Grammarly loves it. Doesn’t matter. If it sounds like I’m trying to sound like a writer instead of telling the truth, I’ll keep at it until I can hear myself again.

Apparently I do this with everything. Pay attention to any organization long enough, and eventually the story doesn’t match what I see. A training plan starts showing me where numbers on the page don’t match what my body actually did on day one—so I rebuild it around the miles I ran, not the ones I wish I had.

Underneath all of it, maybe, is the same demand: be real. Don’t dress yourself up for me. I’ve lost whatever patience I had for language manufactured to sound like feeling, or for people who perform presence instead of offering it. I’ve lived enough life to know the difference now.

Maybe that’s why close enough bothers me. A number is either right or it isn’t. A sentence sounds like me, or it doesn’t. A friend shows up, or they don’t. People are more complicated than spreadsheets. Sometimes I wish they weren’t—because spreadsheets are supposed to reconcile. People don’t always. Neither does grief. Neither does God, for that matter.

I’ve carried questions for years that have never produced the missing number. Still, my instinct is to go back through the cells one more time, convinced I somehow missed something.

Sometimes I have. Sometimes there’s nothing there to find.

That’s what I’m still learning. Paying attention doesn’t guarantee an answer. Loyalty doesn’t guarantee somebody stays. What if the real answer is that there isn’t one?

I hate that.

I want the numbers to reconcile. I want the person who stopped calling to tell me why. I want God to answer instead of leaving me wondering if He’s listening. Sometimes living in the real world means admitting there may not be an answer.

Show up. Pay attention. I’ve said it enough that it risks sounding like a slogan. It isn’t. It was never a promise that I’d find an answer. Only a promise about what I’d do while I was looking.

I never found the $409.38.

I checked the formulas again. Went back to the beginning and started over.

Nothing.

And I kept thinking about where else I could look.