Normal, is only a setting on my dryer.

 

I am wondering today just really, what is normal.  If anyone would look at the outside of me, of my life, they would say – normal.

 

How funny is that.

 

I am 51, professional, have a law degree from a college just barely below Ivy League, that I have NEVER once used.  I work for slightly over $8 bucks an hour because I work for my best friend, who is a successful businesswoman.  She is successful because she notoriously underpays her staff.  I am married to a man who has been a disabled veteran since he was 19 years old.  I live in a $100 thousand dollar home, but right now my cable/land line phone is shut off for non payment.  My mortgage is paid though.  My electric is paid. The gas?? Well, it isn’t very much, so it slipped.  Right now we are paying for the daughter to go to a methadone clinic and the gas is about $70 a week.  That’s $280 a month that I don’t really have, but have to come up with anyway.

 

I have a number of children, hard to describe.  My oldest two are biological.  One of them is successfully married to a guy in the service, going to nursing school and carrying a 3.8 G.P.A. She has a daughter age 5 who has severe gastroparesis.  Her digestive system doesn’t work. It is horrid.  Oh, and the daughter? She was born brain damaged.  They said she wouldn’t graduate high school, much less go on to college with a 3.8, and it is NOT special classes.  She is in college for her R.N.

 

The second biological child was extremely gifted.  The star of the high school and the perfect kid growing up.  She has two children that she has lost custody of (to us) and is pregnant with a third, (different father) and, she is a heroin addict.

 

My third child I didn’t give birth to.  My husband’s ex wife did.  But, he is mine.  He is so like me.  Very intelligent, not very motivated when it comes to the ‘normal’ things.  But, when HE wants something, God help anyone who gets in his way.

 

Saturday, he is marrying my biological niece who is also highly intelligent, pretty and very stubborn.  Her mother was married, I think, 4 times.  Her family is even weirder than mine. 

 

The baby, also not my biological child is the epitome of the high school, all American girl. She is beautiful, doesn’t care one bit, a senior in high school,  a varsity cheerleader, wears sweat pants inside out to school, talks incessantly, gets average grades, cannot spell to save her life, isn’t really dating anyone yet and drives us all nuts.

 

A couple of extra kids are now grown as well.  The one who was the only child of a single parent father and was raised on welfare turned out extremely well. She is happily married and the mother to one, step mother to three. 

 

Another we raised is also happily married to an engineer, mother to two boys, one of whom was born at a mere 4.4 pounds and had a rocky start, the other whom is autistic and just turned three years old.

 

My best friend is married to an engineer. They have five children, one biological, four adopted, two black, one Hispanic and one American Indian.  The most successful isn’t the biological one.  One of the girls is bipolar with schizoaffective paranoia and has lost custody of her daughter to her parents, who adopted the baby and are raising her.  She is now 10.  Another of their daughters just lost custody of her four children to their father because she turned into an alcoholic.

 

We are raising a 7 year old granddaughter who was supposed to die the night she was born, and her 4 year old sister who was born addicted to heroin.  Possibly another in a few months.

 

Our income is between $65k and $110k. 

 

One of my closer friends is an alcoholic.  She is the manager of a successful ENT’s office.  She drinks two bottles of wine every single night. Her husband is second in charge of the local hospital.  He bartends on the side.  Neither one of their two grown sons is anything to write home about. Both have been arrested for either drunk driving or drugs.

 

I think I have a point.  No one, anywhere is normal.  I am an average, white, American woman.  And, I have issues, problems and dysfunctionality.  But, if you were to meet me professionally, you would think that I am totally normal, boring and just average.

 

And I would probably think you were as well. But, I bet you have weirdo’s in your family.  Things you wish were hidden. Relatives that you are ashamed of, or perhaps not.  Fights and funny times to rival the Osborne’s on reality TV.

 

I think somewhere, Leave it to Beaver got us all confused as to what we were supposed to be like.

 

But, we are supposed to just be what we are. Unashamedly, normally, just regular folks who are human.

 

Viva la difference.