Who Wants to be Normal?

Normal

Adjective

Conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural.

Normal. What does that even mean in practical terms? What would it mean to be a normal person? Is a normal person mostly happy? Do normal people make good citizens? Does a normal person hold a steady job, pay bills on time and enjoy the occasional movie? Have a normal life? Live by normal means in a normal world, with normal struggles and normal triumphs to which they react in a normal fashion?

To answer my very first question, me. Sometimes.

Some days it pains and angers me without end to know that I’m just not normal. To be honest I don’t really know what normal is (or even if normal really is even normal) but I know that, if even only for one day, I would like to be it.

You see, to an alcoholic addict normal means someone who can drink like a normal person. A normal person can have a drink or two and not have it soon take over their life. He or she can basically take it or leave it without a second thought. This person can drink without losing jobs, homes or families and can drink without ending up on a booking log. He or she can drink without alienating friends and loved ones and without ever even considering the morning drink.

I can’t in truth do any of these things. I can’t ever have a drink or a drug again without convicting myself once more to a living death. I can’t ever use any mood altering substance of abuse without it eventually ending in my untimely death. I can’t even make it through a single day without having a thought the nature of which will cause me to wonder what in the world is wrong with me.

I remember too that I never wanted to be normal. I never wanted to be typical or walk down the middle of the straight and narrow path.  As a young man I didn't often use the word “average” without prefacing it with the modifier “pathetically,” although this was most often to flash the hubris that eventually would help me to be humiliated into humility.

Sometimes I curse my own existence and wonder why it has to be exactly as it is; I then remember that it is exactly as it must be for me to be alive and to contribute to this world in a meaningful way. My life has been abnormal to an unbearable level at times but I wouldn't trade it for another. If I’d lived a normal life right up until this very moment I would have no real story to tell and I don’t know that I would have any real love to give. I may not have any true compassion and I’d probably not be as passionate about the things in which I believe. Loyalty wouldn't be so important and I would never feel driven by having something to prove. I simply wouldn't be me and there would not be as much of myself to give.

Normal? Upon further review, I’ll stay out in the ether and on the fringes. Maybe I will see you there.