What defines ‘Normal’?

What defines a ‘normal’ person?

Normal isn’t a concept but more likely an idealistic structure on life that maybe fits closer to the view propaganda had in the 1950’s on ‘the perfect normal life’. With a pastel coloured car, straight white children and a house with a picket fence.

Of course, this is outdated and generally dumb, however this need and desperate longing for normal never seems to be satisfied. 

A ‘normal’ person to me means someone who has gone through the ups and downs of life, someone who has endured suffering but seen equal amounts and joy and likely not suffered from panic attacks or mental health conditions of any kind. 

I don’t think there are many ‘normal’ people.

So why do we try and become a part of this miniscule minority in the population when the vast majority aren’t normal?

No. Now the thing to be is ‘original’. Sell your own brand, except that term is no longer limited to retail but now as a label to an identity. You must become one in 7 billion and try your hardest not to become like everyone else. 

As someone who’s still growing up, this is something I’ve noticed in that process. We’ve reversed the principles we learned from our first social steps of school and are now told to express ourselves to the extent that it’s shamed upon when you don’t. Be different, be bold – well what if I don’t want to be bold? What if I don’t want to be seen or heard every minute of my life just to prove to those around me that I am individual, I am special. 

Its exhausting. Frankly. 

After a lifetime in commitment to a system where ‘fitting in’ seems to be the ‘norm’, it is frowned upon to ‘act out’ yet we are told to develop ourselves individually in a place where we all wear the same clothes and told to abide by the same rules as if we all fit into the same pair of shoes.

Society teaches us to want to be normal but reprimands us for trying.

You must wear black socks to school but continue to ask interesting questions on topics relating to history, religion and science.

Why do my socks need to be black for that to happen?

Why must I have sensibly coloured hair for people to take me seriously?

Why is the standard of work I do, not enough to earn recognition or praise for the hours put in?

Instead someone who’s done the bare minimum is rewarded for the smallest effort but those who continually perform and try and cry over the near-impossible work are given a simple “well done” for just handing it in.

Are we only valued on the work we do (or the work we don’t) and not the people we are? School teaches us as such. Work over identity. Being who you are isn’t enough.

So we try hard to do both (work to be valued and establish our identites) and find that this takes us away from ‘normal’ even more by throwing mental health issues our way further stating that ‘you’re not normal’.

But not being normal is actually the good thing to be. You don’t inherently want to be like everyone else but it should also mean that you shouldn’t have to prove it all the time.

We may wish to escape our struggles or our pain or our pasts but it is all in greater pursuit of a better future. Seeking to individualise, take control and become original, unique and incredible versions of ourselves.

So that’s why I often find the need to write things down. It’s something to leave behind.

An entirely original mark on the world that is inherently not normal and true to myself.

So here it is.

Make the mark you want but don’t feel that you need a triple strength permanent marker to do it.

If it’s true to you and who you are, then the mark you make will matter no matter the size.

In the beginning…

"We can't choose where we come from, 
but we can choose where we go from there." 
- Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of being a Wallflower

Normally I wouldn’t associate my thoughts and their distribution into the world in the same breath but as this is my first blog post, it symbolises a much needed beginning to that integration.

Welcome. Hello. Guten Tag.

My life is something I’m both content with and at the same time find myself sub-consciously seeking escapism from. Listening to music at a certain volume or finding a good enough book are just some of the ways but recently I’ve properly discovered the dissatisfaction I feel in the everyday, like there’s a stagnant element that I can’t shake because I feel like I’m not moving forward or backward.

Just stuck in the middle.

*cue the untimely singing of the Stealers Wheel song.*

I realise that you don’t know me and you don’t know how I think because only I can do that. However I’m sure there are ways we think alike, for example I know I’m not the only person to want someone to genuinely ask me how I’m doing or makes awkward eye-contact with a help-desk employee in a Supermarket instead of raising my hand or my voice when my bag of crisps isn’t recognised in the baggage area.

All the small and big things of the everyday are terrifying in their own way.

So that is why I am here.

To talk about the big, little, fat, thin, tall and short quirks of life from My Perspective.

As a basis I can attest to being a young person in this age of technology, twisted politics, historical movements and environmental crisis, and know that this is neither easy or bearable at times.

At other times it feels revolutionary to be alive.

But during a global pandemic, it’s sometimes hard to see where I fit into the mix and how my existence will make an impact in the long run on things that matter.

A recent example I can give (well as recent as you can before COVID 19 messed it all up) is the time I spent participating in the Fridays For Future campaign to protest Climate Injustices. Attending protests during school hours and making signs from broken pieces of cardboard made me feel accomplished in its own way since I knew I was contributing to a greater purpose that was ultimately aiding the fight against climate change. At the same time, the pride I felt whilst walking beside so many other young people, all with the same goal, provided this sense of whole-ness that I find myself missing in the following months stuck at home with only the company of a weekly Zoom call from my friends to keep me social.

So I end up wishing back to those moments of validation that I was, in fact, doing something worthwhile. On other days, I sit up from my bed at 5pm after whole-season binge watch and wonder if I’ll ever make good decisions again.

It comes and goes.

Although, as the world continues to pick up that pace and the mood changes from day to day, the sense of escapism I feel still lingers. So I keep listening to the likes of Arlo Parks, Alexi Murdoch and Bruno Major at deafening levels and distracting myself from the impending future that is awaiting me in the form of a gap year and the possibility of University afterwards in the wake of a global pandemic.

Hey, at least it’ll be interesting. 🙂

What are you doing next year? – and other panic-inducing questions.

The most common question I’ve come to expect from people nowadays is ‘What are you doing next year?’ which, in itself, is something that can be easy to answer logically but the second that the answer isn’t something stable, secure or definitive, judgement creeps in and you find yourself questioning whether your decisions ever made sense in the first place.

Yes, thus begins the spiral.

As someone who has now finished with the thirteen years of rigid education associated with the early years of life, I find myself questioning my own sense of self and what role I have to play in this wide world. Where I previously noticed, in the final months leading up to the untimely end of my time in Sixth Form, the progressive loss of myself I knew that I couldn’t and wouldn’t choose to lose myself further in attending University that same year. So, I decided for the other option.

Take a gap year.

Ooh Scary!

Despite the friendly and frenzied support I received from many older friends who had taken that same time to travel, see the world and discover themselves, the lingering thought that I wasn’t conforming to the ‘norm’ still dug away at me.

What if I had nothing to do?

What if I ran out of money and ended up wasting my days away at home?

What if my University didn’t accept my deferral and I lost my place?

What if COVID 19 messed it up completely? – this one especially.

All these questions swirled around for a few months until a realised, while sat crying in the bathroom at school, that I had to take the plunge for the sake of my own mental health and need within me, to travel.

Because I’ve always wanted to travel, as cliché as it may sound.

Now that I’d made that decision; then came the endless string of conversations that come with finishing school where people’s curiosity to know what you plan to do, now that your life isn’t structured from the day to day, can turn from support to scrutiny in a split second.

“What do you plan to do next year?”

“Oh, I’m taking a gap year and plan to go travelling. Maybe New Zealand, maybe India.”

This is the moment when the use of “maybe” urged forward the self-doubt I felt begin to impact and the look on the other persons face morphed into something resembling interest, along with doubt and pity. Pity that I wasn’t certain about what my plans were.

Now I’m, by no means, implying that all conversations end up with this reaction (some can be very positive) but from the MANY I’ve had since school ended; there emerges a pattern.

Going to University straight away is deemed ‘normal’ and helps prompt the next question: “What are you going to study?”

Choosing to take a gap year implies a sense of ‘giving up’ or running away from the responsibilities of further study when it is, in fact, the opposite.

It’s to take time off, maybe to rediscover your identity or sense of self that I know I lost during my final year of school in favour of homework, revision and endless worrying about results and statistics.

They don’t matter as much as you may think.

So when I was approached with these questions about my future, there were and still are times where I doubt if taking a gap year is still a good idea. Where it’s terrifying thinking about being self-sufficient in another country or living away from home and ‘wouldn’t it just be easier to go to University this year and not have to think about those things?’

No. This is something I choose to do because I now have the freedom to.

No matter what those I meet may say, be it family, friends, elderly relatives that don’t believe young people can think for themselves or those that believe that choosing not to be sure of your next move shows how unorganised you are.

I am naturally an organised person, almost to a fault. I’m the person who would pack my school bag the night before and lay out my clothes and triple check that my homework was done. I’m ‘that’ person.

So it’s really a Crisis of Trust.

Trust that someone knows their own mind.

Trust that is necessary for more people the realise that you have the CHOICE to do what YOU want to do.

If you want to go to University and have waited years to study and live somewhere you’ll thrive and grow – go ahead!
If you want to take a year to travel, go abroad, spend all your savings and find your passion, then go for it!
If you have absolutely no idea what to do with the next year or month or day or moment of your life, THAT IS OKAY!

We shouldn’t have to know what our next move is every time because discovering your wants, needs and dreams is part of the process.

Part of the process of growing up and becoming yourself.

Not what other people think you’ll become.