Define “Normal”
What is normal, anyway? Certainly nothing to which I’ve grown accustomed. I’ve suffered from insomnia for so long that when I am on a “healthy” sleeping schedule, for instance, I am quite unsure of how to handle myself. The truth is, there has never been anything remotely “normal” about me. As an infant, I was the hydrocephalic. As a child, I was the hemiplegic. The stroke victim. The storyteller. And now, as I face leaving the home I have known for the past eighteen years, I am much the same, sans the word “victim” in lieu of terms such as “pansexual” and “avoidant”. No one ever told me I was normal, and so “normal” I have never claimed to be. The only thing that has varied with the presence of this fact throughout my life is my level of acceptance where it is concerned. Never have I meshed very well with any crowd; my interests always seem to vary greatly from those of my peers. When I was younger, I did not take kindly to this notion. I never had many friends- not because I was unapproachable or unlikable, just because I was ceaselessly chasing after people whose approval I sought. Predictably enough, it was often that these individuals proved to be fair-weather friends. Of course, when I was in elementary school the only plausible reason for their behavior was that I was undesirable. Cue the era of “trying too hard”. As I matured, I began to realize that my chief character flaw was only that I had no idea what my character was. I often found myself lost in the stories I was writing, losing touch with my reality, in hopes that I would find a helpful clue- or, perhaps, the answer to it all- within the lines I had written. Of course, that was only a dangerous game- but still, I kept writing. Fiction, fantasy, non-fiction, poetry- it didn’t matter. Whatever was going on in my life, I wrote about it. And then one day, it occurred to me that true fiction did not exist. I began to see that the characters whose tales I had so carefully woven were but extensions of the person I had grown to despise so deeply: myself. That no matter how many details I changed, there was a part of me that I could not escape. It frightened me at first, having spent so long trying in vain to alter reality. But after that realization, my perception of the world itself seemed to shift. Things that I had never even noticed around me were beautiful. It was like stepping into a colour portrait from the confines of a black and white photograph. I saw those things, and I wrote about them. That was my calling; that was what I excelled in. The human spirit, I discovered, is not something that can be tamed enough to describe. It just is. It leaves its mark on everything its body touches, records things the conscious mind does not even take notice of. What happens to things, then? That depends on who you ask. I believe that they are stored away for later use; locked away for a time when their purpose will be properly understood. If something isn’t happening, perhaps you are not ready for it yet. Perhaps the meaning of your existence is hidden away in your subconscious mind, waiting. Do what you love. You will understand soon enough. And with understanding comes acceptance.
