Y B Normal?
I spent a good bit of my life thinking there was such a thing as normal and "right." The definition of normal, although shifting, involved something about the number of children one has, the amount of money one (or a couple) makes, the neighborhood one lives in, the amount of one's education, how the children were educated, the state of one's finances, one's physical habits (not smoking, etc.), blah, blah, blah. And it always came out that I was just not in the normal category, no matter how hard I tried, and I wondered why I was excluded from it.
Unfortunately, I held onto these misconceptions well into my forties, to some extent, but I finally realized and am now fully convinced that there is no such thing as normal, and if there is, not one person on the planet qualifies.
Thank goodness! Everyone I know is odd, some very, some just a little. Some do their best to hide it, some are pretty successful, but no one is normal. How wonderful for oddities and eccentricities. It is the stuff of poetry and storytelling and great art.
How am I not normal? I have one child, I have an unemployed husband, I have a rare, congenital disease very few have ever heard of, I have a mentally handicapped brother, I published a novel but no one reads it, I ...... These are all things that could bring me shame, but I choose not to let them, because I know every one else has a similar list of non-normalities that bring them shame but shouldn't.
Of course, for practical purposes, we have a range of normal that constitutes what is tolerated. For my part, Michael Jackson was outside that range. One does not have to call him a pedophile to be appalled at the media's response, which is so over the top that I am in a stupefied by it.
Unfortunately, I held onto these misconceptions well into my forties, to some extent, but I finally realized and am now fully convinced that there is no such thing as normal, and if there is, not one person on the planet qualifies.
Thank goodness! Everyone I know is odd, some very, some just a little. Some do their best to hide it, some are pretty successful, but no one is normal. How wonderful for oddities and eccentricities. It is the stuff of poetry and storytelling and great art.
How am I not normal? I have one child, I have an unemployed husband, I have a rare, congenital disease very few have ever heard of, I have a mentally handicapped brother, I published a novel but no one reads it, I ...... These are all things that could bring me shame, but I choose not to let them, because I know every one else has a similar list of non-normalities that bring them shame but shouldn't.
Of course, for practical purposes, we have a range of normal that constitutes what is tolerated. For my part, Michael Jackson was outside that range. One does not have to call him a pedophile to be appalled at the media's response, which is so over the top that I am in a stupefied by it.
Comments