I've not been in the best of health recently. Before Christmas I went through a bought of insomnia. It doesn't come often but when I do I have about 2 weeks were I get maybe 2-3 hours of sleep a night, struggle through the days like a zombie until I am at the point of such exhaustion I flop and sleep straight for 18 hours the normality resumes. When this happens my entire life goes on hold, it's difficult being a parent at times like that let alone being capable of getting everything right with the pets, work and as for the little social life I have, forget that. Just as I felt better and felt capable of going back to rugby training and dancing, it left with me with 2 sessions of each before the Christmas/New Year break. Then a few days running up to Christmas I get this irritating cough, not the kind that goes with a cold but a hacking, way down from the bottom of your lungs, rib cracking cough. A week of coughing like I smoked again (and worse because my lungs felt I was on 80 a day but I was never anywhere near that bad) but getting to the point I couldn't breath, hubby drags me kicking to the doctors (I really didn't want to bother the doc over a cough!) to be told it's a chest infection. Never had one before in my life! I get given and inhaler and to go back in a week if I'm still having trouble. I did end up going back as even though it was getting better not by much. By this point I havent walked my dogs in 2 weeks! hubby has had to do it. I'm promptly met with a lecture of not resting (no rugby, no dancing and no dog walking, what more does she want). Thankfully apart from the odd cough now and then I'm all better, have successfully walked the dogs the last 3 nights and as of Sunday I will have my first match of the year, dancing Monday and training Tuesday.
For me this is normality.
It got me thinking though, what is normality? We're taught from a very young age the way things should be. You're born, go to school to learn, if your luck college and uni too, get a job, get married, buy a home, have kids, work till retirement then die. Isn't that horrid when it's broken down like that?
I did the growing up bit although I would say my childhood was far from normal. I didn't do college or uni, couldn't face being behind a desk anymore so I went straight to work. I moved in with my soon to be husband a year later. He was already a daddy, his little boy (my step son) was just 4 months old. Although we'd known each other nearly 3 years by then we'd only been dating about 5 weeks when I turned up on his doorstep asking to stay a few nights as I found myself homeless. The rest as they say is history. I was 20 when we married, C was 4 that year. We've been trying for a baby since just before we married, but nearly 6 years on we're getting used to the fact it may not happen. We've had the tests, just wanted to know why it was proving difficult. I have PCOS but apparently not sever enough to cause a huge problem, I should fall pregnant quite easily? Obviously not. But it's not the end of the world. People always seem baffled when we say, it's actually OK. Yes it would be nice, but we have C. I treat him like my own, Love him like I had given him life myself, he is my world and I really would do anything for that child.
Then there's the house buying... we did buy a house, in very unusual circumstances. Had to sell it again 4 years later due to those circumstances. Now renting a place, a council house. I'm sure that would make my mother so proud! (note the sarcasm) It's good though. It's a good size in a lovely village. The company is reasonable so my mini farm isn't a problem.
That's the other thing. How many pets is normal? A dog or 2? Maybe a couple of cats. Maybe a rabbit out the back that you've forgotten about and probably don't know how to car for anyway?
I grew up with 2 dogs, 6 cats, ferrets, 3 ponds of fish. Because we were smack bang in the middle of nowhere I learnt to care for hedgehogs that left it too late to hibernate, pheasants flocked to the garden to be fed at the shake of the tub of birdseed, even looked after one particular male who broke his wing. Lived for years. Raised a pair of ducks after our oldest dog put the mother off the nest and she didn't come back. Think Fly Away Home, but instead of using a plane to teach them to fly, we were running up and down the garden, flapping our arms. They got it in the end. Unfortunately one of them died before she got the hang of it but the remaining one brought her babies home every year for about 5 years.
I think there's a lot to be said for children who are privileged enough to grow up with animals.
Anyway back to the normality thing, what is it? If I tell people how young I was when I married and watch them work out my age when they know how old C is, is often quite funny. But I don't know if it's the age I am to have it all, but because it's just that. I have it all. I wasn't accidentally 'knocked up' at young age, I made the conscious decision to take on someone elses child and raise him as my own. We were together a reasonable amount of time before marrying.
I can proudly say that apart from a few months in total due to loosing a couple of jobs (OK honestly I was fired from one but when you stand up to a chauvinistic pig that tends to happen). These days that's rare, especially at 25.
I rambled a bit more than intended. I'll carry this thought on another day, I need my bed.
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