There’s No Normal Life, There’s Just Life.

Stop waiting for “normal,” because this is it.

Having been cooped up for a few days now, due to a surgery, I’ve been feeling a little sorry for myself. I’m perfectly fine being cooped up when it’s on my own terms. I like introverting. But now that I look and feel like a science project gone wrong, I can’t go out and it’s grating on my nerves.

Late last night I decided to step outside under the cover of darkness, and just breathe. I needed to feel the cool air that all the free people have been enjoying. The people I’ve been watching each day through my window, walking or jogging past, while wishing I could be one of them.

Standing outside in the darkness, looking up at millions of stars against a black sky, a woman I used to know crossed my mind.

We were real life acquaintances a very long time ago and have since turned into distant Facebook contacts over the years.

I learned through my timeline that some years ago, she developed a form of cancer that she would never recover from. She’s a single mom of an eight year old boy and watching her journey has been painful and heartbreaking.

Recently, her personal posts stopped and were replaced by someone else posting for her, informing her followers that she is now in hospice.

The starry sky last night made me think of her battle and how long she’d been fighting it. She, her son, and her family have had many years to prepare for this time and they’ve taken it as a blessing.

While that sounds tragic to all of us, it became normal life for her. Fighting to survive another day has been her “normal” so she learned to seize her moments and adjust.

Still outside in the darkness, after thinking of her, my mind wandered to my own loved one who has been fighting addiction and is currently incarcerated. His “normal” is behind bars and he has spent so many years that way that he has adjusted. My “normal” is having to live alongside him and adjust.

All of these situations floating through my head may seem extenuating for those who don’t have to live within those realities. But for those who DO live them, it’s not extenuating. It’s just life.

When I visualize all the challenges every human has to live through, they appear flat in my mind. None of them appear as spikes on a graph, they’re just straight lines that we’ve been designated to walk in our journeys through life.

So then, what is normal life?

It’s the life you’re living right now, regardless of how abnormal it may seem. No matter how many times you look at someone else’s life and wish yours was “normal” like theirs, yours IS normal because it’s the life you’ve been given.

I can attest to the fact that if we choose to believe it, the grass will always be greener on the other side. We will always envy a life we think is better, even if it isn’t.

I remember way back in my corporate days when I’d leave my desk periodically, to go outside for a cigarette break. During one of those breaks I was chatting with another woman out there, and she was visibly distraught over the fact that she’d caught her son smoking marijuana.

With a deep understanding of how she may have felt, I thought to myself, “Lady, if marijuana was ALL my son smoked I’d grow the plants for him.”

At the time I could only wish for a normal life like hers instead of being the mother of an addict. It’s all about perspective, but of course I never verbalized my thoughts to her because she was struggling with her own thing. Who was I to minimize her feelings? My normal was not hers.

The title of this story is a line taken directly from the movie Tombstone, 26 years ago. I never forgot that line Doc Holliday spoke while on his death bed.

“There is no normal life, there’s just life.”

Whatever is happening in your life right now IS your normal, because it’s the life you’re living.

It’s your job to take it, run with it, and adapt. If you don’t, you’ll be in a constant state of envy.

The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, and if it appears that way? It’s probably astro-turf.

***This piece is dedicated to L.R. and her family. She is the woman mentioned in the beginning of the article, and I found out shortly after publishing this piece, that she succumbed to her disease. She is now resting peacefully. May God watch over her son***

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