I wonder if blogging on Christmas Eve is the equivalent of burying bad news on an otherwise newsworthy day. Nobody's reading this, are they? So on we go.
I've been thinking a lot about normality. What is normal? A normal looking bloke? A normal relationship? A normal job? A normal life?
Take me, for instance. I'm average height and, until quite recently, average weight. I had dark hair once, but now it (or what's left of it - average male pattern baldness) is going grey. I am employed, full-time, in an office-based job that I like but is not my dream career. All very average. There is a Ms New Amusements and we live in a brick house in a semi rural location. So normal. And yet...
And yet.
There are aspects of my life that are so far removed from what you might consider normal. I can barely comprehend them myself, sometimes, so what chance has anyone else got?
Nothing is normal, is it? Or perhaps there are as many varieties of normal as there are people. Or couples. Or families.
Whatever. Bottom line? My life is abnormal. So's yours.
Absolutely agree - nothing is normal. My dad (the antithesis of normal, oh my god, to a degree you wouldn't believe right now) once quoted Clement Freud to my sister and me (I paraphrase) "Show me a normal person and I'll cure them". It's stuck with me ever since.
ReplyDeleteThe other day, I was with a friend I haven't known all that well for all that long and ended up opening up about some of the dysfunctionality (is that even a word?) in my childhood. She looked at me and said, "How come you're so normal?" Although I knew what she was implying (that I'm not 'crazy'), a little part of me felt slightly taken aback. Me? Normal?! Whaat? Indeed, I don't think any of us, nor our lives, can be such a thing, because it doesn't exist. All that exists are hugely varying degrees of what does or doesn't fit some kind of social convention.
Anyway, I'm rabbiting, and I'm blogging on Christmas Eve too - so all that's left to say now is I hope you and yours have a happy and peaceful Christmas break. Have really enjoyed coming here this year, thanks Martin :-)
Don't worry, if you're normal it just means you're abnormal like the rest of us.
DeleteI got to thinking about this, in part because of a chat I had with a friend whose life seems so normal, yet the slightest conversational scratch below the surface revealed a side of his life that is anything but. Yet it has become his normal.
And thanks for all your comments and contributions below the line, C. I'm not exaggerating when I say your interaction has helped to drive the growth in this blog...so thanks, and happy Christmas.
Thanks Martin, my pleasure....and I find this sort of thing, and other subjects you have brought up here, so interesting to read, think about and discuss. But I'm just here again now because I suddenly realised that I actually said Clement - *Clement!* - Freud. Oh dear - and I haven't even had a drink yet. Of course you knew I meant Sigmund but were far too polite to mention it :-)
DeleteI knew what you meant :)
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