Is it when your day goes perfect? Is it when a family consists of a mom, dad, 2.5 kids and a dog? Is it when you order a hamburger and fries? Or maybe a hot dog with ketchup and mustard? Maybe it’s when you are always the perfect weight. Or you never get fired. Or perhaps it is when you live to be 79.2 years old.
Is it when you like coffee with one sugar and one creamer? Or you like Seinfeld but not Friends… or when you get your license on your sixteenth birthday or you have a new job every six years… Or your first job, fresh out of college, you made $30K annually. Or you drive a five-year old car and you’ll keep driving it for two more years because now it is paid for. Or you like to go to the movies on Friday night…, or you prefer butter on your popcorn.
Maybe it’s when your son gets three A’s and three B’s and your daughter gets four A’s and two B’s? Or you pull weeds once a month… or you prefer 75 degrees to 85 degrees… Maybe you go to get a physical exam and everything checks out, you are perfect. Could it be when you make the perfect meal and there are no leftovers OR there are leftovers but they get eaten the next day and they taste just as good or even better?
Maybe normal is when you prefer to stay home instead of going out or there are never dirty dishes in the sink or your favorite movie is Shawshank Redemption – like 10 million other people (except they don’t really mean it because they don’t really get it)… Maybe normal is when no one ever complains about you or remembers you…
You like your steak medium, not rare or well-done. Your hair looks perfect everyday and you get a trim every six weeks like clock work. Your dog doesn’t eat your shoes OR pees in the house.
It must be when your flight departs and arrives on time, with absolutely no complications or when the drive-thru never forgets that extra order of fries. You are never late and there is never traffic… No one is ever offended by what you said or did. You are understood, at all times and in all things…, that’s good one, huh?
If there is such a thing as normal, I have never seen it and probably never will. Therefore, we must learn to live with our idiosyncrasies and with those around us who believe THEY are the normal ones.
So, unless you are talking about the city in Illinois (Normal, IL: population 50,000)…, I, personally, don’t believe it exists.
The New Front Porch 