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I think I was normal when I was born – shortly thereafter things must have gone downhill.
Growing up in elementary school I was still fairly normal. I had a hip friend and we played Barbie’s all the time. We both excelled at dancing and were fairly equal in grades.
In junior high I found my first boyfriend – I suppose that was a normal time to have a boyfriend. My granddaughter is in junior high now and she has a boyfriend. Yes – I think I was still normal then.
In high school I was still doing well at dancing. However, my favorite thing was music. Maybe that’s where the abnormalities began. I loved band and especially band camp. It was fun. I was even voted “Ms. Masquera” at Texas Tech band camp one year – never figured out if that was a compliment or not but I did get along well with my piers at band camp. I went faithfully every year and was a floor counselor in the dorm for 2 or 3 years. I loved marching band and wound up at Tech on a full-ride scholarship in the band. I guess that wasn’t too normal and I was pretty lucky to get to college with such a good scholarship.
My Freshman year at Tech was probably abnormal. I was one of two flute players to make the marching band as a Freshman. There were about 45 of us trying out. I also made the concert band – again there were only 2 or 3 of us Freshman who made the 18 flute player positions. I hung out with a bunch of really fun friends but I never partied. That’s rather abnormal for college I guess. I pledged Tau Beta Sigma but still never partied very much even then except for a few times when I got to sing with the Texas Tech Jazz Band. That was during the “Chicago” band era and all those great horn parts on contemporary music. The Jazz Band didn’t use a singer on every song but I did get to travel to several gigs with them and of course, there were some really cool guys in the Jazz Band!
As an adult my husband I played country music for a living. That is definitely abnormal. We traveled from Texas to Alaska, back to Florida and up to Maryland – really had a great time but it’s not a normal job. I’ve never been one to drink or party too much. That was definitely abnormal for someone who was in bars 5 to 6 nights a week.
I always felt normal while we lived in Maryland. This time we had turned some things around and my husband and I began singing and playing with a gospel group. We traveled every week-end and had so much fun on our bus. When our son was born we took him on the bus with us and he got pretty spoiled. When Lee was born he was on the bus traveling at the ripe old age of about two weeks old. That isn’t normal! Anyway, the guys and the one other female in the group were just great and we loved being with them and playing Christian music. We met tons of nice people along the way.
Back home in Texas I began to feel a little abnormal again. There are many blessings to living in a small town and we count ourselves lucky to be here – but I do get a little lonely from time to time. There aren’t many people in my age group with kids still in school here. Most people have a large number of family members who still live here or who have grown up here all their lives so I’m a little abnormal. I don’t really feel too comfortable in a lot of areas here.
We just got back from a few days at the beach which is a normal thing for our family to do the week after school gets out. It was great! I did notice that I was the only, repeat – only, person on the beach who looked like they had cancer. That is abnormal. No other woman had on a bandana that didn’t have any hair sticking out from underneath it or a hat with hair under it. I felt abnormal! On Friday nights at South Padre Island we always take the kids down to the bay to Louie’s Backyard to watch a wonderful fire works display. There were no other people there at all who looked like they were making trips to see an oncologist. I felt so abnormal that I called my sister to compare notes on cancer so I could feel normal again!
Yesterday at my oncologists visit he told me I was abnormal! OK – so now it’s been clinically proven. My pathology results are really good right now – for someone with cancer. I’m very blessed but I sure wish I could pass along those abnormally good reports to my sister. Her’s aren’t as detrimental as they have been in the past but they could be better.
Anyway, my cancer doctor told me that before I was diagnosed with cancer I wasn’t normal. How did he know? He told me that I was chasing kids, holding down a few businesses, maintaining a couple of hobbies, and feeling good. He said that wasn’t normal.
But now I have cancer and my body is telling me that things are really abnormal. Especially after each chemo treatment. I don’t have any “life” and my episodes with chemo-brain are pathetic – but normal. My appetite has diminished somewhat but that is normal. One of my tumor counts is 0.0 – that is abnormally good. I have no hair which is abnormal but with chemo treatments it’s normal.
I can’t concentrate which is abnormal but, again, with chemo it’s normal. I’m either very sleepy or I can’t sleep – I haven’t decided which one of those symptoms is normal. Certain smells make me either nauseous or completely sick to my stomach – that’s abnormal but right now it’s normal. My bones ache – that’s abnormal but right now it’s also normal.
Boy, this is confusing. Am I normal? No! Am I abnormal? No! Do I really care – not really – which is probably abnormal!