normal

I watched this music video today.

And I guess I was already feeling a bit despondent after hearing about the elementary school shootings, because I started crying about two minutes into it.

It made me think about how hard people try to be "normal" and how we will fight against our nature and suffer just so we can fit in with those around us. Everyone seems to have their own definition of "normal", but usually it is whatever you're raised with and the people you're surrounded by.

In my community, being Christian and heterosexual is normal and growing up, I always assumed that I was also. It wasn't until my late teens that I began to question whether normal worked for me.

As a teenager, I had never heard of anyone's definition of God that made sense to me. I didn't like that people gave God the worst and pettiest of human emotions like anger and jealously. If there was a God I believed that he/she/it didn't care about if I believed in him/her/it and was nothing like human. In spite of all this, I still labeled myself a Christian. So, I stopped.

I never had to question my "assumed" sexuality. It was pretty obvious to me that I was heterosexual, so that one was easy.

As a female, it is also normal to want to have babies. I had never felt that strong, biological desire that I heard other woman talk about, so I figured it was one of those things that would just happen in time. At age 30, I'm still waiting, however I've have come to realize that having biological children is another "normal" that I will most likely never fulfill.

Do these things make me "bad"? I don't think so. I think they make me me. I have not doubt that denying or ignoring them would make me unhappy and unfulfilled.

There are no rules on how to live life correctly. I think that's why people want some. We are given absolute freedom over our lives and we want so badly to give it away. Myself, included. I feel that as children we are a bit of victims of circumstances. However, as we get older we have important decisions to make and need to take responsibility for our own happiness, and the first step in doing that is finding out just what makes you happy: not society, nor your family, not your friends. It sounds simple, but it may be the most difficult thing that some people can do.