Lesson #17: There Is No Normal

A lot of patients used to ask me "is this normal?" meaning, am I just like everyone else? I've spent most of my life knowing I was not normal, yet striving to be so, starting with the most basic of premises: my name. I longed for a normal name, or maybe merely one that appeared on license plates and shoelaces. Then there was the nose job. Sometimes I still regret not having one, but I stuck with my Streisand principle ("it might alter my singing voice!). Then there was prom. I needed a normal date. Stat. But that wasn't happening since I went to a near-all-girls artsy fartsy school where no boys actually dated any of the girls. No matter. I plucked a younger buck, star basketball player, and basically terrified him into being my escort. There was no new car, and no loss of virginity to punctuate my 16th and senior prom. But I did insist on renting a limo. Tried so very hard to have the prototypical American prom night. Even though I was in Canada. There really hasn't been anything normal about me, from my name to my academic ping ponging career path, to my lack of wedded bliss and 2.5 offspring. I've come to appreciate my oh-so-google-able name, to my Romanesque profile, to my eclectic pedigree. And in truth, what is "normal" after all? As I lay on the massage table earlier tonight being tortured, the therapist said "wow, you are one of few clients I've ever had who wasn't lying" and by that he was referring to my earlier statement of "my neck is really screwed up, especially the right side." Nice. I forget sometimes that I walk around every day with excruciatingly painful anatomy. I just do. I don't actually have any recollection of what it feels like to be not crooked. Normal. In graduate school, my father thought it was normal that he had to see the teacher to hear what he was saying (turns out he was deaf, just never knew it). All we know is what we know. I don't believe in absolutes, just relatives. Is the blue sky I look up at the same blue someone else sees? I don't think so. Everyone told me that medical school would be "brutal," years of pain and suffering and it would only get worse in residency. So, when I was beyond miserable, dreading every day of my existence, I thought, "well, this is normal, this is what they told me it would be, so I guess I'll keep on trucking." But it wasn't normal for me. Sometimes it's just hard to know the difference between what you feel and what you think you are supposed to feel. Sometimes you want to be normal so badly that you forget that it doesn't exist. Well, it does. It's whatever you are at this moment.