Normal

   I spent some time with a couple of friends yesterday afternoon. We sat out on a deck enjoying the nice weather, good conversation and each other's company. We ranged over a lot of different topics. One of them was on being "normal". As usual I recited my favourite quote on the subject, "We do not know what is normal, we only know what is customary." We spent a few minutes on the topic and then moved on. The thought stayed in the back of my head. I pondered it as I drove home. (C isn't the only one who ponders.)
  Normal "adj. 1 Conforming, adhering to, or constituting a usual or typical standard, pattern, level or type" (American Heritage Dictionary Second College Edition) In other words, customary.
   When I was a teenager I did not consider myself "normal". I didn't do what the other kids my age did. I wasn't dating. I wasn't staying out late, unless I was working. I wasn't getting drunk. My closest friends were books, the radio and a cat. When you live in a small town, being normal is very important. You don't want to stick out or seem weird. It's just not done.
   I found the fact that normal is just another word for customary comforting. It meant that somewhere there was going to be a place where there would be more people like me. In that place I wouldn't be odd, weird and strange. I would be normal.
  I started looking for that place. When I got out of college instead of concentrating on finding a husband, I was concentrating on learning to be a really good pharmacist. I had, to a certain extent, fallen in love with my profession. I had some really good preceptors and teachers in college that inspired me. I wanted to be the kind of health care professional that people would trust. I wanted to help people take care of themselves. I wanted to be seen as someone who cared and would answer any question that I could. While most of the women my age were getting married and having families, I was working and learning. I was having a good time, (most of the time anyway) but I still wasn't normal.
   I met a guy. We had things in common and I sort of liked him. As I got to know him,I realised that this was not someone I wanted to spend the rest of my with. He was looking for someone who wanted lots of children. (He wanted six kids, three boys and three girls.) He wanted someone who was Catholic. (I was Lutheran.) I was looking for someone who liked me just the way I was. He wanted me to be someone else. I stayed in that relationship anyway because for the first time in my life, I had a steady boyfriend. I was normal. I had someone who would give me a heart on Valentine's Day. Never mind the fact that it was an anatomically correct heart made of red jello and covered in cherry sauce. (It's the thought that counts right?)
   We broke up. I wouldn't be what he wanted and he wouldn't be what I wanted. I was back to being abnormal again.  
  I changed jobs. I tried a management position. That's one of the things you are supposed to do,right? You can't stay a staff person forever. The next step up the ladder is management. It was the normal thing to do. I soon learned the practical application of the Peter Principle. I had reached my level of incompetence. Fortunately I knew this and decided to go back to being a staff pharmacist. I was happier in that position and I was better at it. The fact that I wasn't ambitious and didn't want to move up made me abnormal in yet another way.
     I did marry, but even that didn't make me normal. The people I knew who were married were either married for a long time or were getting divorced. My marriage wasn't a normal marriage. I didn't marry the guy on the white horse who would carry me away to "happily ever after". I married a musician with five children who were young adults to middle teens. I found myself with grandchildren before I turned 40, dealing with things that most newlyweds don't have to deal with. I was happy and enjoying being married, but instead of getting closer to normal I was moving farther away.
   I was beginning to see that normal is restrictive. Instead of trying to find the place where I would be normal maybe I should embrace my "abnormality". Everyone has their own path to walk. Sometimes the path you take is taken by only a few. Sometimes you walk the path alone or with just your spouse. It's all right. Customary isn't always the best thing and it's not the only thing.
  That brings me back to the deck overlooking my friend's back yard. There were three of us sitting on the deck,enjoying the weather and each other's company. Each of us had a point in our life where we were not normal. Each of us had times in our lives when we were different from those around us. I had found the place I was looking for. I had found the place where there were others like me, not because we had similar backgrounds. It was because we all experienced being not normal or customary and learned to thrive.

For Patricia, Dana and Carole Cheers!