What is normal? and September

What is normal?

I've heard that normal is what everyone else is, but is what everyone else is truly normal?

I'm not normal.

I'm a bundle of insecurities and neurosis. I question my worth in this world constantly. I weigh too much, I'm too short. My nose is too big. My mouth is too small (Contrary to what my family thinks), I worry too much and I have problems doing higher levels of math.

I'm not average or normal.

So what is normal?

We complain and go on about how much we want our special needs children to be normal contributors to society.

Normal contributors to society.

Honestly?

I know people who walk the streets that have college educations that don't contribute to society and are supposedly more "normal" than my son; they speak clearly and eloquently at times, however, they cannot function as human beings without being drunk.

Yeah.

I know people with master degrees that are the meanest people I have ever met and are wrapped up in their own self importance. They care nothing for anyone in the world that doesn't contribute to their universe.

There is very little humanity left in them.

I know people who think that they are normal, but are so warped as to believe every comment coming out of the Republican party's mouths and listen intently to someone as biased and jaded as Rush Limbaugh. These same people think that he's an intelligent and good journalist.

I have met people who act average on the outside but are so obsessed with outside appearances that they puke in toilets to get that all important pant size "0".

I know people that can't handle a relationship with anyone else but themselves.

I know people who think because they made bad life decisions and made bad money decisions, decided to burn their bridges and retired early despite the fact that they were in a money hole and now live off social security and disability.

Now generally this should cover all their living expenses, but since they were in a hole to start with, without any way to dig them out, it is now impossible for them to live off of these things.

And they have become a pariah to their families.

They expect their family to support them even though they saved no money for retirement and have no relationships that panned out to help them deal with the loneliness of older age.

They now cling to their extended family for the support a good friend, a spouse or a child would offer.

And they are considered more normal than my son.

I know people that live their lives in video games in online virtual communities.

I know people who are so love starved as to be carpets for children so they don't loose the love they aren't even sure they have from their families.

I have met people whose families can't seem to love one another long enough to be in the same room with one another.

I know people who make their children believe that they are not wanted and are only there because they came with the whole "marriage package".

I know people who had these children and loved having children until they became teenagers and then were done with them. In other words, they treated their children like some people treat puppies and kittens. As soon as they become dogs and cats these same people don't want them anymore.

I know people who have to take drugs to control their temperament.

I know people that can't tell the truth if they had to…

I know people who allow themselves to be abused.

I know people who are so angry to be alive that they don't remember what it is like to love, or be kind, or what a family actually consist of and have therefore become psychotic.

I know people who believe everything they hear on television- read in the paper- see on the internet.

I could go on all night long.

So what is normal?

Truth is, no one is completely normal.

So how could anyone think that I would want my son to be "normal"? He's fine the way he is, because he's relatively happy.

He may never have a high paying job, but then again, these days; the most recent college graduate may end up working as a Wal-Mart manager or the manager of a Jiffy Lube.

We must be careful not to believe that we are normal. Because being normal is like being rich.

It's subjective.

Someone you think is abnormal may be more normal than you think and they may be more normal than you are.

Yeah.

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September

Booga was watching a TV show with me about September 11, 2001 and I asked him if he remembered that day.

He said, “The World Trade Center.”

He knew. He remembered it.

That day I had taken off work to take Booga to a new doctor. So, the date was very loud and pronounced in my mind for several weeks.

I don’t know why, but for some reason doctors don’t like to give appointments for Mondays. Or at least they didn’t back then. Anyway, I had just started a new job in Information Technologies and I felt ridiculous because the day before I was putting an operating system on a computer and the silly thing would not connect to the network server. I found out later that it was because of a pervasive virus that affected many servers all across the United States that day.

Now, for a while we thought it was part of the terror attack but apparently it was simply coincidence.

Anyway, I was almost happy to have to take Booga to the doctor as it would get me out of there. I felt like an idiot and questioned what I was doing in Information Technology in the first place.

That morning I was watching The Today Show like I always did, and they said a small plane had hit the first tower. I ICQ’d my co-worker and told her about it and her response was, “Oh great, that’s all we need.” (Later I would print out the entire conversation and put it inside a magazine and store it for my children to fight over after my husband and I were gone.)

I couldn’t sit around and be perplexed by the happenings, life does go on even during terrorist attacks, and so I packed up Booga and went to the doctor’s office.

But not before looking at the building that had been hit (later we would call it “that first building”) and thinking, “That buildings going to fall.”

Later on I would think that it was strange that I thought that. I mean, it wasn’t leaning but for some reason I thought it would fall. I don’t know why.

Booga and I left and when I got there I told the receptionist what was going on, because she didn’t know about it, because it did stun me. And when we’re in that situation we want to know that someone else around us knows why we are acting funny so we tell them, plus we want them to be aware. When your at a doctors office like that you can’t allow yourself to think much more of anything else until after the appointment is over. Because your child is your focus and very much should be…

When the appointment was over I drove over to the satellite office of our company. I walked into my friend’s office and she said,

“We’re under attack.”

Okay, that just seemed silly.

“No no,” She said, “A plane went down in Pennsylvania, they’ve attacked the Pentagon and the towers are gone.”

“What?”

“The towers are gone in New York, where is your husband?”

It was then I realized that I hadn’t even thought about that, because he was always in a different town everyday and sometimes I just knew the state he was in and not the exact location of where my husband was…

“He’s in New York…..”

And he was suppose to go to Manhattan….Oh my heavens, and it would be just like him to go site seeing in New York on a day like this, because he sometimes had time to kill and he would wander around and look at the town he was in….Oh my word. What if, no no, he wasn’t there. But what if???

So I spent the rest of the day freaked out. I tried desperately to get him on the phone; along with my sister in law who insisted on calling my husband’s employer. I really really wish she would have left it alone because his job is such that, the location of where he is working currently, changes like some people change clothes. Besides, there wasn't anything they could do about where he was. I personally didn’t think it was her place to call them. Honestly if I thought it was necessary I would have called them and I wasn’t going to go into fits about it until I knew for sure he was in Manhattan and to be frank I wanted to hold on to the thought that he was somewhere else, it was helping me coup with this at that point, and relatives sometimes can do more harm than good. We know they want to help but when this happens it’s just best to be patient and call ask for updates as soon as information is imparted.

When my kids came home I hugged them tight and sorry to say, I drank a little too much that night.

My husband was in New York, however he wasn’t going to be in Manhattan till the next day (praise God) and he was fine despite the fact neither one of us got a chance to talk to one another until the evening of that day. My children and I were very happy to see him come home after that month gone from us and we hugged him like we’d never hugged him before.

Now why do I tell this story? Well, one, everyone has a story like this in their generation. And two, I didn’t know the affect it would have on my children until they were grown.

And really it was my daughter who was the one affected by this day.

My daughter chose to work in law enforcement and hang out with policemen and sheriffs deputies. She chose to be out there with people who make things safe for everyone else. And she chooses to surround herself with domestic heroes.

If anything 911 honed something that was probably always in her because my cousin is a police officer and I’m sure that sort of career runs in families.

It makes you wonder sometimes.

Everything happens for a reason doesn’t it?

Maybe it gave her someone to look up to that she’d never really looked up to before or maybe it made her think about it more than she’d ever thought about it before. I’d never thought about it, but there it was.

Someone is pointed in a direction because of an act like that. And no one knows why something like that happens at the time. But then, later we look back and think, if that hadn’t happened- someone would not be in the job they have or someone else would not be the person they are, or someone would have picked a different career, or someone would not exist in the world.

It’s the “Cause and Effect”. And what would the world be like if that hadn’t happened? How would all our worlds be different?

Everything happens for a reason doesn’t it?