NORMAL IS MOVING. (Part 1 in a Series)

NEW! NOW you can LISTEN to the author read this essay HERE: The Scrawling Shepherd reads "Normal Is Moving"


#NormalIsMoving. #NormalIsOnTheMove. Normal doesn't live here any more. It won't be back. I'm not really worrying about it, though. I'll find it when it settles in at its new address. Don't know where it will be or what it will look like yet. But I'll catch up to it, sure enough.

It's for the best, really. The only thing Normal's old look had going for it was, well, its familiarity. I knew right where to find it. It had really settled in. It was comfortable. Because of that, it was reassuring to me. On reflection, though (because suddenly I find myself with the time to reflect, to think. I had been putting this off, because it is so much easier not to do this. Easier to kick it down the street; to put it off until a time when I might be able to think about things without being annoyed.) Normal really hasn't done that much for me. Just kept me right where I was.

Rats. No more excuses, no more reasons not to think about things. It's time I really started looking at how really messy Normal had made things. Normal is the enemy of progress; the adversary of growth, the antagonist of change. I'd go on, but I left my thesaurus in my actual office/classroom, and in my home office/classroom/broadcasting studio, I don't have room for it.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm pretty excited to imagine the possibilities of Normal's new place. In fact, I've got some ideas I'm going to suggest. For now, though, I'll keep them to myself. I don't want to spoil your joy at being able to have some input into what your new Normal is going to look like.

I just know this. I won't find Normal in the usual place any more. And now that I'm coming to realize that, I think I'll be okay. Maybe I'll be a little more reluctant to let Normal get so comfortable in its next location. #NormalIsATraveler.