Seeking Normal – Day 2

Day 2 prompt:

Consider the antonyms for normal, abnormal, exceptional, odd, out-o-the-ordinary, strange, unusual, extraordinary.

Are they better or worse than normal? Do they describe you?

My answer:

Funny that some of these words are those that we are honored to be described as and others would be insults but all are the opposite of normal. It is also funny that those that we would consider insult are the ones that BEST describe life today. I love to be considered extraordinary and exceptional but do not want to be described as abnormal, odd or strange.

If I am honest those words, all of the words, do describe me in many ways. It is “abnormal” to think the way I do for many but for me it is normal. I push myself harder than most would and that is “unusual“. It is my “normal” and feels right in the way I choose to live my life.

It is my opinion that in your journey to find “normal” that you do have to reconcile with the opposite of normal. The only way to define normal in your own life is to acknowledge the opposite of normal as it is an identifier or the “out of the ordinary”. This is also where the gratitude is found.

The world we live in today is definitely “abnormal”. We are told to stay home, don’t leave your home and risk sickness if we expose ourselves to others. While we recognize that this is “strange” and “unusual” it is the world in which we have to live at this time and finding a semblance of “normal” is simply a way of managing. If you do not reconcile with the opposite of “normal” you cannot relish in the condition or state of being as it is defined. We are missing life as we knew it and are no longer taking for granted the ease at which we could leave our homes, go to the store without concern, eat out with hundreds of strangers around us without a second thought and join in large crowds for the sake of entertainment. I only worry that what we used to consider “normal” will now be “abnormal” in life as we move past this period of devastating loss. Will we always be sensitive to someone being “in our space” will “social distance” be a way of life? No one can know for sure because ultimately what one person chooses as their new normal affects us all.

Life as I live it…unusual as it may appear – L.