That's it.
I'm not here to change lives or help you gain inner peace or make you a better person, or a better partner or a better parent. And although I've studied theology and love the Scriptures, I'm not here to try to save your soul.
Now if for some reason anything I write results in any of the aforementioned, go ahead and try to assign a dollar value to the positive impact I've had in your life and send me a check in that amount.
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So lately I've been thinking about what's normal and what's not.
I was talking to a friend yesterday who was telling me about a conversation she had recently with her significant other in which he said something that, to her, was fantastically absurd.
She kept saying that it "couldn't possibly be normal" for someone to say whatever mean-spirited thing he had said.
And then I started thinking about how many times during some of those particularly heated exchanges I've had with my sweetness that I've thought to myself, "Now this s*** just could not be normal for two people who are supposed to love each other."
****Pardon me while I figure out what kind of language I'm going to use on this blog. I don't consider myself a potty mouth or anything, and I know the saying about how a man who curses has nothing better to say. But, *sigh*, ya know...sometimes, not all the time, but some times nothing drives home a point better than a well-placed expletive...so, I'll need to think about that...apologies in advance to those who are offended, shocked and /or disappointed, and we'll explore the rise and fall of my fundamentalist Christian upbringing later.
But back to normal.
So as I thought about that as it pertains to what goes on in relationships, I started considering the fact that what's normal to one person may be completely abnormal to someone else.
I remember one time I was dating this guy and we'd gone somewhere and I'd forgotten my toothbrush, and he was like, "you can just use mine."
Blink....Blink...Stare.
How god awful disgusting is that!?
He didn't think twice about it. He thought it was normal.
Or what about this:
It's not uncommon for me, my sister, my two brothers, my mom and my dad to all get into my parents bed and watch TV or take an after-dinner nap. Six full-grown adults. So when my brother-in-law and my sweetness came into the fold, and were invited to join us, they turned us down and opted to sit in chairs.
Now, it's hard for me to understand why they wouldn't want to find their own spot at the foot of the bed or sandwiched between the warmth of my mom and my dad. Like Michael Jackson said in his sweet little voice, the most loving thing you can do is share your bed with someone.
But they think it's weird. We don't.
Here's a list, which I think I'll keep running, of things that I, personally, don't think are normal:
- Paying for a cat, or any four-legged friend for that matter, to go on dialysis.
- To have a child naturally when you can have an epidural
- For a crowd of 20-25 people to stand by and watch a 15-year-old girl be gang-raped in Richmond, CA or for a group of Chicago teens to beat a kid to death with a 2 x 4 on a public street
- To spend your scholarship money on a $1500 audio system to put in a 1978 Cutlass Supreme that cost $750, only to have the audio system stolen the next day. (a boyfriend I had my freshman year of college did this, God rest his soul. He was murdered last year.)
oh, look at the time...I'm normally in bed by now.
