I haven’t ever considered my life to be normal. I grew up in a small town with a very close family. I was friends with guys in high school because girls had too much drama. I didn’t mind staying home on a Friday or Saturday night once in a while and enjoyed spending my free time volunteering. I didn’t have a normal college life: I joined a sorority, sat on numerous executive boards, worked part-time, and spent what free time I did manage to have doing homework or sleeping. When I graduated and got married in May 2010 I thought my life would finally be ‘normal’. Neil and I would work full-time, have our nights and weekends free, and enjoy married life. As much as I do enjoy married life the last three months haven’t been what I would consider normal. In July, Neil found out his office was closing and in 60 days he would be unemployed. This threw a wrench into our normal, married life. His days were spent searching for new jobs, interviewing, and trying to land on his feet. Just last week Neil was able to get a good job offer and will start September 13th. Now I thought our life could be normal; without all the worrying. Then Sunday I got a phone call saying my 5 month old niece was possibly having seizures, there goes normal once again! This week has been spent worrying about what’s going on with my niece and trying to be there to comfort my sister. I have had to watch while a 5 month old goes through an EKG, EEG, ECHO, and MRI and have my heart break for my sister who has to watch her baby go through it all. Last night after getting home from the hospital I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep when I suddenly asked my husband, “When is our life going to be normal?” He asked me what I meant and I explained what I thought a normal life should be and with everything that keeps popping up it just doesn’t seem like we’ll ever get there. After laying in silence for a few minutes Neil finally responded, “Maybe this is normal.” Everything finally clicked. There’s no such thing as a ‘normal’ life. Everybody has to deal with ups and downs, some worse than others. As much as I hate what my niece has to go through, all her tests have come back normal and she’s not feeling any pain. The child in the next room has aggressive leukemia and his mother has been in the hospital with him for a week while his siblings are at home with their dad, as heartbreaking as that is its reality. The only normal part about life is that it’s unpredictable and all you can do is take it a day at a time and trust God to get you through.
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Yep, it's true. I used to wonder the same thing and then finally accepted that whatever comes our way is our normal, and our normal may be very different from someone else's, but it is the normal that God has given us! P.S. It's weird to see the posts as being written by SKB. :)
ReplyDeleteYes, I keep thinking Stacy wrote them when I see the SKB. LOL! I agree with both of you, Normal is whatever happens in our daily lives and is different from one person to another. I think sometimes we look at other people's lives and it seems like they go to work, come home, have a weekend where they do whatever they want and we seem to think this is normal and we don't have it, but in reality, there are things that happen in their lives that they don't think are normal and they are probably looking at us wishing for some of "our" normal! Ha ha.
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