People tend to underestimate the value of normal until their situation is no longer normal. Then they start longing for normality.
I haven’t written anything lately. Not for this blog or even for my personal purposes. The last few months have simply been crazy, hectic, confusing, exciting, full of difficult moments and of instants of hope. So, basically I have been using my time trying to process it all instead of taking the time to write a blog entry about it.
Today I am taking advantage of the fact that my life has – at least momentarily – reached a point of balance in which I can take the time to write a bit once again.
This particular entry is sort of difficult for me to write since I do not enjoy disclaiming a lot of information about my personal life, as you may have noticed from my previous entries. I mean, I like rambling about different topics and giving my two cents about many things, but that does not necessarily mean I discuss personal matters, and boy, has my life changed in the last three or four months.
Everything that has happened in these past few moths has made me think a lot about how valuable ‘normal’ can be to human beings. Perhaps one could be struck by a natural disaster, or found out they have a terrible disease, or suffered a personal loss because a loved one died… it doesn’t matter what – if you have ever experimented a moment when you thought to yourself “This isn’t happening, it must be a really bad dream and all I want to do is to wake up” then you know what I mean and I feel for you. It is right then and there that you realize your life has changed and your normal has disappeared, and you long for those uneventful days when nothing seemed to happen.
Today it is November 2nd, a day in which my culture commemorates the passing of all those people we love or look up to. I have been setting an Altar or Ofrenda for my loved ones on the Day of the Dead since 1993, and this year it was especially meaningful to me, not only because a close relative of mine died at the beginning of the year, and his passing has affected my (extended) family very deeply, and that has modified our interactions in a very important way, but also because this year I have been personally bound to a bed for several weeks (and not all of them at the same time), forced to personal breaks as a consequence of situations related to my health, and that has given me many opportunities to reflect on what normal usually means to me, and what I want normal to become in the near and far future, if I can make it happen.
It was sort of a dark Thanksgiving I celebrated on a personal level with my dead friends and relatives. I poured them a glass of tequila, opened a can of coke, got them some water or coffee and had my usual Day of the Dead conversation with them. I’ll see them soon. Hopefully not soon enough, but hey, we are all dying a little bit every day because that’s the deal about living. You cannot make use of your life without wearing it down.
I remembered all of them, cried a little, laughed a lot, thanked them much and all those crazy things people do when they think of those who are no longer with us. I reflected on my own life, on the chances I’ve had along my 38 years of age, on how lucky I’ve been this far, on how challenged I have been feeling for a year and a half or so when my life started getting a bit crazy because my body made sure to let me know I am no longer a teenager and I got sick in many different ways, thus reminding me of my own mortality and frailty. I feel old and afraid, but loved and taken care of. I am a lucky person and I am glad I can see that instead of focusing on what I fear. Lucky woman who is rediscovering her normal once again. Lucky because I get the chance to experience a new life every couple of years and I get to do it surrounded by the people I love.
I don’t know what the future has in store for me or my family, but this I know: I will appreciate the value of normal every day of my life because, what is life if not the normality we experience between the highlights and the downsides we get to experience? This is life, man. This is life.
