Abnormal or Normal?

I have always considered myself a “normal” person. I mean I’m not beautiful, or a genius, or especially talented. I’m average looking, worked hard to get decent grades and my skill set is more practical than anything. So, since I’m not Kate Middleton, or Albert Einstein, or Vincent Van Gogh I’m just “normal”. Right?

I’ve learned in the last many months that may not be the case. I first learned this upon becoming pregnant. In my family you don’t really go to the doctor unless you’re dying, in unbearable pain or having a baby. And that is because we are “abnormal”. In other words, we’re healthy. I don’t have the long list of things they ask if I have on all the paperwork you have to fill out at the doctor’s office. Nor do my parents have any of those things. And although both my grandfathers has cancer, I’m not likely to get lung cancer since I don’t smoke like one grandfather did or have a prostate. My blood pressure tells every nurse that takes it that I’m a runner and they are astounded that I tell them “no” to every “do you have…” question they ask.

And so even Emry is starting out life as “abnormal”, astounding the nurse at her first check up that neither either of her parents or any of her grandparents have diabetes, hypertension, heart problems or anything else on their long list.

We also don’t take drugs in my family. Meaning, I can’t remember the last time I had to get a prescription filled. Which is probably why the two I had filled after I gave birth caused me to run in circles. Not only had I never been to an actual pharmacy but I didn’t have my pharmaceutical insurance card on me because I never imagined needing it. Meanwhile, the guy two people ahead of me had a bag full of enough drugs to supply a small hospital. And there was a line of people as long as the Superman ride at Six Flags at the counter. Maybe I’m not a true American…I don’t take prescription drugs.

Aside from the medical side of my life, if the two neighbors we’ve had living above us since we moved into our duplex are any indication, it is no longer “normal” to sleep at night. The first played video games all hours of the night, sometimes never going to bed before he left for work in the morning. The new people I’ve only seen out the window because they’re rarely around. But I do hear them up in the middle of the night, doing who knows what and then leaving. Apparently, we didn’t get the memo that sleep is overrated. Although maybe I have joined this “normal” club since Emry’s arrival – a membership I’m going to let lapse as soon as Emry sleeps through the night!

Of course, I suppose that “normal” is a word everyone describes differently. What is “normal” to me isn’t “normal” to someone else. If that’s the case, I’m quite happy to be “abnormal” – healthy, drug free and keeping typical day/night hours (more-or-less).

Who ever thought being “abnormal” was comforting?