define normal

What is normal ?

It’s a question that gets asked a lot, and I think it's one of those things that's really open to individual interpretation and a matter of perspective.

My experience has been that the people who are regarded as being not normal are often the most interesting.
By that standard I’d say normal equals boring.

Some people would say you’re not normal if you’re gay, depressed, have a fetish, under 4ft, overweight, have a physical disability…the list goes on.

I’ve been told that I’m not a normal mum, mostly because of the relationship I have with my son. Which probably only differs from the ‘norm’ in that I have always encouraged him to talk to me about anything, and because I still like to go out and party and sometimes do that with him.
So would that make me normal if we lived in a house full of no-go areas for conversation and I stayed in knitting every night ?

A lot of my friends describe me as being crazy, I can’t see it myself, but I think that’s mostly about my refusal to grow old. Way I see it age is a state of mind, think young and you’ll be young and if you don’t wanna lose it then you gotta use it. Society in general seems to think that when you get to a certain age you have to behave a certain way, and if you don’t - well you’re not normal.
At least I‘m not boring.
Bored maybe.

I have been reading some blogs written by people that society as a whole would most likely say are not normal, and they are some of the most interesting things I have ever read.
And all of them have elements about the writers and their problems explained that I totally identify with, reading some of them I’ve been quite taken aback because it’s rung so true with how I’ve felt or behaved at times.

I’ve had a period of my life over the last couple of years where I’ve been kind of depressed, but even so I’ve still had moments of absolute highs - I’m quite sure that statement on it’s own might make some people think I’m bi-polar.

There have been training courses I’ve attended as part of my jobs regarding mental health and behavioural issues where I sat there and felt as if the trainer were talking about me.
One was for autism and we were all given a sheet of paper with a list of about 100 statements and had to tick all that applied to us. At the end we all totalled them up, when asked how many I had ticked the instructor said if I’d ticked just a few more she might’ve been worried about me.
Another course was about Attachment Theory - very interesting and something I ended up studying in depth because it’s highly relevant to children in the care system, where I worked - but also because I related to so much of it personally.

I’m a fairly productive, fully functioning, reasonably intelligent human.

But apparently, based upon the above, I have traits of Autism, Attachment Disorder, Bi-Polar, Schizophrenia, Anger Management Issues, Attention Deficit, Borderline Personality Disorder, Addictive Personality, Psychosis, Drug Addiction and a few fetishes that I can satisfy with my Sex Addiction.
Basically I’m screwed.

But then who the fuck wants to be normal anyway ?