On being normal at nineteen

I've written about "Normal" before.

What is "Normal"?

Well, in a movie I watched I heard it said that "Normal" is what everyone is and you are not.

That's double talk. If everyone else was normal than we would all be the same with the exception of those who were not "Normal". And those would be a handful.

Where are the rules of normality in this world? Is it written down in a book?

Thereby this we are normal?

No.

The intellectually impaired truly aren't impaired per say. Other's might understand quicker or be farther along in their development as human beings but that's not being normal. I know men in their seventies that aren't grown up socially, same with some men in their fifties, same with some men in their thirties and so on….Same with women; we don't get out of this either.

SO what is normal?

 

There is no real normal. It's an illusion brought on by eating too many Oglanuts.*

 

Booga was sitting with his teacher. And lately Booga has been going through some real independence issues. He's also become a bit rebellious and since he can't pierce his upper part of his ear, nose, eyebrow, and lip and so on, and since he can't color his hair all the colors of the rainbow it's a little worse than it was with my other teens.

Such as the whole, "Don't watch me," thing, the keeping secrets and locking his bedroom door and the whole drinking coffee thing (which I believe is similar to the whole coloring hair and piercing body parts but only on an autistic level.) These are all levels of rebelliousness that can't be eased by outward signs of independence such as alter ones appearance to the chagrin of mom and dad.

Anyway, Booga was sitting with his teacher and she said to him, one day not long ago when he was getting in trouble a lot and she spoke to him saying, "Sometimes, we just need to be….."

And Booga completed her sentence, "Normal."

It broke her heart that she realized that Booga knew that there was something not right with him.

I can't be surprised. He's smart. He's not mentally impaired so much as the veil of Autism keeps him from showing his true mentality.

I mean, his brother and sister and not that much older than he and they are gone. Missy got married, Chewie moved away to another state. And he has to know, he's not doing the things they did to grow up and become adults, like, driving and dating and going to prom and going to parties and getting into trouble (well at least for the things his brother and sister got in trouble for) and graduating from high school. He's been sheltered by the fact that we made sure he was confirmed in a special needs catechism at about the same time as the other two had been confirmed and we go about treating him like any other kid.

But lately, it's more and more apparent, that he is not just any other kid; because he's going to be twenty, and these things aren't happening and he's still in high school….And everyone's on him to be quiet in public and to give people, "personal space" and so forth.

And so we told him, "Booga, no one is normal." Which is true.

Not Mom, not Dad, not your aunts, uncles or cousins, no one can claim to be normal and perfect. Not even people that seem to be normal and perfect can claim to be normal. The only person that was normal and perfect was Christ and they crucified him, because he told people that they were wrong and they didn't want to hear it and because he had to die on the cross for our sins.

We're all imperfect human beings. And as imperfection is not normal, no one can claim to be normal.

There's simply no such thing as "Normal".

Can you think of one person that you can call "Normal"? I mean, no imperfections and aside from Christ himself.

Yea.

So, no normal.

Deal with it.

It's not sad, in fact it's very enlightened, the individual that can determine that he or she needs to grow.

I would like more people to examine themselves and check on the fact that they need to grow personally, mentally, socially, spiritually….

So does that make Booga smarter than a lot of people? Less impaired as it were?

May be.

Pretty heady stuff there. Think about that.

 

*And you know what I am talking about if you've read Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.

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