I wish I could tell you I was one of those people who just always knew something was different--or rather, that something was off about them--but I wasn't. I always thought of myself as being a very competent, normal human being.
Sure, I've had my moments when I've thought, "Oh, I might be the next Mia Hamm" (yeah, that didn't happen) or "I think I might be much smarter than the average person" (only to remember that it was my siblings, and not me, who could not study for a test and still pass). I even had the delusion once in a while that "if Stephanie Meyer did it, so can I" (now that, to be fair, is considerably easier a task than being the next Mia Hamm). But, ultimately, all of these delusions of grandeur have come to nothing, and I've always ended up concluding that I was a totally average unremarkable (to use Abed's terminology). After all, doesn't everyone talk to themselves, both in their head and out loud, like... all the time? Doesn't everyone use their adult wages to indulge in their childhood pleasures like buying a whole bunch of Yakult or any other brand of Korean probiotic yogurt and drink it all at the same time? Doesn't everyone construct music videos in their head for their favorite songs? Duh!
So, it has been a bit of a shocker to come to the realization that I am, in actual fact, not normal at all.
Not in the slightest.
Because, really, reader, it isn't normal to be 33 years old and have no desire to form a family or have children. It isn't normal to be 33 years old and not picture what your life will be in five, ten, or twenty years. It isn't normal to have such an incredibly low level of ambition about things to accomplish in life. It isn't normal to walk away from a perfectly stable and well-paid job in a beautiful profession where you are more or less liked by the majority of your pupils and start over from scratch as a student in a field that has the potential to be satisfying and fulfilling but also utterly terrifying and exhausting. It isn't normal to find relief in the fact that, for the next two years, I won't have to think about how not-normal I am because I am doing a beautifully difficult and complex thing that MIGHT turn out to be the answer to my lack of clarity and purpose.
It ain't normal, ya'll. I hear about it constantly.
"But you're such a great teacher! Give it another chance!"
"Well, but are you sure you want to be a nurse? It's such a difficult field. My ____ used to be a nurse and she hated it! So stressful!"
"Wait... 33? And you don't have a husband? A boyfriend? NO KIDS? 33? But... you need to get started, or it will be too late before you know it."
"Don't worry. You'll find the one once you stop looking."
"If you were a little more feminine, you'd have better luck finding someone."
"You just... are too intimidating. Men are afraid of you."
"Are you sure you're not just a lesbian?"
"Just admit you're a lesbian."
"Why don't you adopt?"
"Oh, so you say you have a 59-year-old, 300-pound coworker with no teeth... is he single?" *wink* (this one is less factual than the previous ones, but it captures the essence of the non-stop heckling I get from my beloved Mexican family).
"No, no, you are not cut out to be a nun. That's not for you."
I understand that most of the above are well-meaning attempts from both strangers and non-strangers to give unsolicited advice. I also see how their unsolicited advice is a reflection of their own fears and insecurities in many cases. And if I were more practical, I would simply reply to all those inquiries/statements mechanically, without getting my panties in a bunch (LOL, I had never used that idiom before--go me! This whole "being an American citizen" is changing me!):
" I'd make a great lesbian, but Henry Cavill makes my heart stop and takes my breath away. I would also make a great nun, and Jesus Christ makes my heart stop and takes my breath away. I can't adopt a child, I have no money nor the mental capacity to give him/her my all. Men aren't afraid of me, I just don't flaunt my goodies around or pretend I am interested in what they are saying. I'm feminine, I sleep with my earrings on. My mother had a kid at 43, so if I really wanted one, ten years seems like plenty of time. The 300-pound, toothless coworker is a fan of Club America, therefore completely undatable. I hated teaching more than I liked it (a lot more). I don't know if I'll like nursing or if it's my life's vocation, but I'm willing to try it out."
There's the other man of my dreams ^^^^
But the problem is, I am a sensitive weirdo (and clearly have a resentful memory), so those comments stay with me and pile up and get filed under "proof that you aren't normal" in my brain. And my brain translated these phrases into "proof that you aren't worthy," "proof that you aren't important," "proof that you suck."
And then a beautiful thing happened in 2017. A man broke my heart so deeply, so horribly, that I finally realized that I couldn't do this life this way anymore. I finally accepted that I needed a hand (or several).
It's been three years almost exactly to the day that I started going to therapy. My friends can tell you that I love my therapist as fiercely as I love them and that I feel guilty about the fact that she has helped me so much yet I know so little about her. Sometimes I really just want to sit there and be like "enough about me, let's talk about you" (as you can see, reader, I am still working on "healthy boundaries"). Therapy the way I experience it might not look like more than "oh, someone to vent to," but somehow it has done a world of good.
Of course, I am not suddenly cured of all my insecurities, anxieties, fears, trauma, etc. Sometimes, those comments cut me to the core, especially when they are coming from people who are meant to have my back. I have to remind myself that, ultimately, "hurt people hurt people." But, most times, when I'm far enough removed from those awkward situations when those comments were said, I can laugh about it and conclude, light-hearted, that I am not normal. It can even be a source of pride, to be so out of the norm.
So, yeah, dudes, I know I'm not normal. I know how that probably ends up playing out: I don't get married, I don't have kids, I go to college for another decade and miss out on the convent, I get too old to adopt, I work as a nurse for a while and then end up being a school nurse because the hours are better (OH THE IRONY), and I probably die younger than average (I am left-handed... the stats are against me). That's that. A seemingly unremarkable life.
But, when put under the lens of an existential microscope, one might be able to observe a rich microcosm teeming with life. The life of a world traveler, of an amateur writer, of everyone's favorite auntie, of an avid karaoker and ukuleler, of a former teacher turned nurse, of the owner of a piano who has very poor piano skills, of a lifetime jokester, of a terrible dancer who loves to dance, of a clumsy dummy, of a road-rager, of a Mexican lady with a thing for white dudes, of an intense foodie, of a woman deeply, passionately loved by the King of the universe (and by his mother). What an extra-ordinary life, indeed. I'm so glad to be right in the thick of it already.
--Cris
