What is normal?  I still haven’t figured that one out and many a medical professional has told me over the last 20-plus years that there is no such thing as a normal person.  Well, that may be true, however, for quite a while I wasn’t convinced.  When told there were no normal people, I would get irritated and insist that I wasn’t even close to MOST people on the “normalcy scale”, which does exist! It exists in my head.   I’ve spent large portions of my life trying to find that normal person to compare against myself and using it as a weapon for self-destruction. If there is a normal person, contrary to what I’ve been adamantly told, I’m not it.  However, over the past few years, I’ve come to realize that this concept of a normal person, it’s one of those less than/more than equations applied to life.   There is hope though, as I’ve stopped looking in attempt to LIVE life.

5 years ago, in February, I turned 40.  Little did I realize, spending most of the week of my birthday intoxicated, that I was tail spinning towards the end of a way of life I had been living for years.  After that booze filled birthday on the beach in Mexico, I continued the slide a few more months.  The foundation I had built my life on was crumbling and I was starting to fall apart.  It was April 21 of 2014, hungover and emotionally devoid of any passion for living, that I came to realize that I was running out of options.  I was starting to have physical consequences that no amount of lying was going to be able to cover up.  There was no joy left to life.  I had medicated myself with alcohol so well… too well… that I felt nothing.  What is the point to life when there is nothing?  It was the beginning of a quick dive down into a hole I had been digging for years – intent of filling said hole with my body.  And as usual I’d let someone else pour the dirt in to fill the hole up and hopefully clean up the mess.

On paper I looked good.  I had a reasonable job, a loving husband and family, a nice home, 2 cars, plenty of food and lots and lots of booze.  It was how I dealt with life – good times, bad times – you name it there’s a drink for that! However, I was starting to feel hollow.  Hollow is not really a feeling, it’s a lack of any sort of feeling, so I guess hollow doesn’t quite ring true.  What I felt was self-loathing and self-hatred.  I despised myself for who I had become.  I fueled this negativity with having to be less than or more than everything and everyone around me.  There was a giant hole in the center of my being that kept growing, swallowing up my existence.  And sadly, it brought back vaguely familiar feelings and memories from the past that I had stuffed down and ignored, instead of addressing.  I was far from the “Normal” that I had struggled with for more than 20 years.  Comparative living isn’t living – I’ve tried it and it wasn’t much in the way of a “life”.

After the alcohol cleared my system and I’ve now had some time to do some soul-searching and work on finding peace and serenity with who I am, I’ve also realized that life is not without challenges for just about anyone.  Everyone has some sort of struggle, just as I was taught when I was pursuing a degree in English.  In the “story” of anyone’s life there is bound to be a struggle or conflict and it is the humanness of overcoming said struggles that develops our “character”.  (Hey, I said I have a degree in English, expect the occasional play on words, analogies and even alliteration.) 

So why am I doing this?  Why put this stuff out into the universe?  I’m not an expert on anything – not a doctor, psychologist, chaplain…. This is not a self-help blog.  I am a work in progress.  I feel if we have even the smallest grain of hope, there is a chance to LIVE life.  You may know nothing of the issues I struggle with, but if you look for the similarities and see some hope in some struggle of your own – whatever that struggle may be – latch on to that grain of Hope.  Sometimes it only takes the smallest seed to sprout into something amazing.  That is my truth.  As I change and evolve, hopefully this blog will too.  Hopefully by sharing snapshots into where I’ve been and what I’ve been able to deal with so far, as well as what has helped me overcome some of my struggles, and my thoughts on how I deal with life and life’s challenges, something positive in the way of hope will echo and help someone.  Or maybe it won’t.  But I will hold out hope. 

*DISCLAIMER* – IF you feel you are that Normal person – that’s WONDERFUL!  I am happy for you!  You are excused from reading my blog as there is no point.  This probably isn’t the blog for you.  To everyone else – ENJOY!