normal is………

So.  I am 36 years old.  First of all, how the hell did that happen and second, whatever age you are, don’t tell me that 36 is young, I’m not bitching about the number, that’s not the point.  I am here and it is just another reminder that time is short.  So shut up and listen to me for a second (or don’t), but the ideal me has something to say right now.

Create something.  Resonate with someone.  Mean something to someone.  Have friends, have hobbies, have relationships.  Get happy, get angry, throw a chair once and a while.  Don’t sit back and be quiet, not anymore.  Need someone, need some thing or things, need feelings.  Forget embarrassed, forget uncomfortable unless that is who you are and need to be, let loose or don’t, but be who you are and try to feel pride in it.  Be weird, it’s ok.  Be really weird, a lot, that’s ok too.  Who’s the most normal person you know?  Ok, now see it from the other side.  Do you want anyone that knows you to answer that question with your name as the answer?  Believe that it is ok to be someone completely different from anyone else.  No one you know is the person they play in real life.

the you that you aren’t

If you find someone who is happy all the time, they aren’t, trust me.  I’ve had that title once or twice and while flattering, I guess, it’s laughable, but mostly because, and we’ve covered this before, I’m insane.  One thing I know for sure is that no one you know is the person they play online either.  I’m guilty too.  I share the best me of the day or week and play it off like that’s life…..like that’s my life……  We keep messing with people’s emotions and feelings when we do that and it IS serious.  Why can’t I be like them, why can’t I be happy all the time, why can’t I only go to great places everyday with all the best people and have the best time ever and always be doing, seeing, acting, feeling…..the best?  What have I done wrong?

But wait, maybe I AM the best?  I look at my accounts, my photos and I think maybe I am the best too.  Maybe even better than the best of all the bests?  Am I winning the competition here to see who can make up the best life?  It’s getting to the point where I have had more interaction with my friends through texting over the last few years than I did in person the ten years before that.

When was the last time you sent a sad photo?  Do you tell the world about the bad days?  You do still have bad days, right?  I have bad days and that’s ok.  Ah, but what would you become if you were honest?  You’d be branded the sad friend.  That all too important number would begin to drop, the ignore buttons, the unfollow clicks would come sooner and more often until there would be nothing left but your honesty and solitary social media account.  Then God help you because a social media account with no friends or followers is the saddest thing society can think of.  So don’t be honest.  Post that family portrait at the beach, wait two weeks until your next happy moment and post that too because I just can’t get enough of how perfect the world is when I get online and look at the people I know…

there is a reason to care

Perhaps every generation says this for whatever the reason is during that time period.  But at age 36 I honestly feel like we were the last people to grow up without full immersion into this other dimension where we can so easily be almost anything we want to be on paper, as long as we don’t have to prove it.  The thing is, this affects human being’s lives.  It affects their mental condition, it affects their ability to be happy, to feel satisfied.  If you are having a good day, you probably tend to disregard small annoyances.  On a really good day, you may even laugh at them.  “Oh look at Sally and Walter, they sure do love to go to the (input a location that, for you, can instantly invoke rage) I guess your kids have to be EXTRA smart or friends have to be EXTRA rich to go there and do that thing….Ha ha ha….go jump off a bridge with your hoosier or yuppie friends or whatever….ha ha.”

But what about the bad days?  What about the days when “go jump off a bridge” is where you are when your day starts?  When you wake up feeling down and even your one morning joy of coffee doesn’t work out right.  “Well, I can’t start over now!  I’m already at a caffeine level of 6 even though that cup of joe tasted like the inside of a dog’s stomach.  If I have more, even if it tastes good, I’ll probably feel too fast in my head and then feel sick.”  Now it’s 8:04 in the morning and you’re just like all the others waiting for Friday, except Friday right now, for you, could be anything as long as it isn’t this.  So, we already stated, this is a bad day jump started by your own swirling tornado of a mind and jolted into the orange, heightened alert status by Frank, the ‘I try so soft to be good at my job’ and make dog stomach coffee.  So let’s get to work, but probably not.  Where do we turn for comfort?  Where do look for guidance on how to wear a shirt or make a shirt or take a shirt and make it into a better shirt?  Where do we go for advice on making things out of other things and double checking that it’s all gluten free when we just don’t really know what that means?  And finally, for good measure because I could write essays on each of these, where do we go to feel comfort by looking at things we’ll never have, never be able to do, didn’t invent, design or create and see things we usually hate?  Well, you know.  So the bad day hits this moment head on and then we are greeted by Mr. Perfect and perfect doing perfect things and being perfect.  I need not go on as it doesn’t get any better……..

So, in conclusion, I really hope you got something out of my WordPress Blog that I just posted to Facebook and Twitter and REALLY hope you’ll give me a Like or even better, Share it with someone.