Just What IS Normal?

This post is going to be kind of two-fold.  But have you ever really questioned what normal actually means?

In high school I played sports and because I had played those sports since I was six years old with the same people, my group of friends and associates tended to be centered on my teammates. My best friends and I had played softball and volleyball together from tee-ball to high school sports and spent summers playing on traveling teams together.  So without any intention on my part, those relationships from my sports teams carried over into my personal life.  And true to the age old stereotypes those “jocks” were some of the most popular kids in our school.  From my perspective that’s how I thought others viewed me as well.  One of the “cool/popular kids” who “plays sports” and “is pretty”.  I hated being classified that way.  In reality I spent my time with a variety of people and “cliques” within our school.  Outside of my two best girlfriends and a view guy friends who were like brothers, I didn’t consider myself to have had a true “circle of friends” and I thought it was unfair to have been judged so incorrectly.  I was called names and talked about behind my back…and it hurt.  I remember crying to my mom telling her how people just didn’t give me a chance and wouldn’t even try to get to know me.  I remember thinking that I was a person willing to talk the ears off of a brick wall so how could someone possibly think I was stuck up or a snob? 

That’s the funny thing about being classifying people as “popular” or “normal,” so often the truth is so very different.  Immaturity alone hinders not only our ability to see life and others with the wisdom to know that the cover is hardly ever a true representation of a book, nor nearly as interesting.

Another funny thing about high school and cliques is that once we grow up we realize we wasted a lot of time and effort focusing on them.  I was fortunate that my graduating class not only encompassed a very diverse group of individuals, but that throughout our senior year we found people from every “clique” hanging out together as if those classifications didn’t have boundary walls.

Since having graduated, become addicted to Facebook, dated then married husband (and was introduced, and in some cases reintroduced to some people he called friends), and started blogging pretty openly about my life and thoughts, I have come to know quite a few people (some (including Husband himself!) of which used to laugh and call me names, in spite of my not having a bright glowing red nose) on a whole new level compared to our acquaintances in those Enka blue walls.

And fortunately our close-knit graduating class has remained almost just as close throughout the years.  This past weekend Husband and I headed home for the annual Bele Chere weekend.  Although we didn’t make it to a single concert or even walk around and check out the vendors baubles, we DID get to meet up with our old classmates, watch a few of them sing in their beautiful voices and reconnect with some that we are just now discovering we have a world in common with.  And it all seemed so…normal.

The second fold of this post is about Husband.  Everyone keeps asking me if things are getting back to normal now that the BAR is over.  I’m finding that I am a little dumbfounded for an answer every time.  In one sense, yes things are getting back to normal if by normal you mean the 15 hours study days are over and we actually get to eat dinner together.  But actually things are not very normal, or not a normal I’ve known in a long time.  Husband is a totally different person.  He is carefree and funny and he is even smiling from time to time.  He’s more laid back than I’ve seen him since college.  We were able to go run and see and talk about the places he frequented during his adolescence, and plan for a Harry Potter date night tonight, and sit on the porch and take in the setting sun.  Our life is so far from normal right now.  I’m not sure if normal is a word we will ever be able to use again or at least not for the next four years.  And if I’m totally honest, I love being abnormal.

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