What is normal?

The day when writing a letter was an option again, found me listing all the things that I had not been able to do for the past six weeks. Raising my right arm into a chicken wing position to write letters was one of them. 

Normal  has a definition. “Conforming to the usual, typical or expected” is what most dictionaries quip.  One’s standard of normal however is often self-relevant. In other words, my normal is not your normal. Anything measured has a standard normalcy. But about the only thing measured in my life this last month is how many pain pills were needed to make it to the end of the day while remaining upright. 

So now that normal is approaching, behaving so that the rib can have it’s goal healing time is far from normal to me. Doing things the old-way is so easy until it suddenly is not 

Writing letters to dear ones comes easy at times. Words for those closest to me however seems lost. With the conveniences of phone calls and texting, the pen and paper are no longer normal. What more is there to say I tell myself as I sit before the empty pages. 

Other mothers or fathers have done such a thorough job of imparting their wisdom. A brief look at the list of “letters to my daughter” on the search engine proves my point. I’m really not sure at this time in our lives that I have anything new to write to my girls. 

Then I come across a list of what parents are to impart to adult children, failure finds my eyes sweating profusely. Step up to the image of good parent and the measurement seems quite lacking. What is normal -I find myself in the category there. Perhaps this checking out normal is a bad decision. 

Writing is only for the few. Normal is only relative to one’s own expectation.  Thank goodness my girls live in the day of easy phone calls and conversations. Thank goodness I can create a new normal any day I so choose. If perhaps I can figure out what to say on part to my adult children then maybe perhaps I will behind writing. Until then there are thousands of books to comb through.  Somebody has already written a few million words to their child. 

I will just keep doing my normal letter writing. And normal does not have to be re-defined for me. 

Phew! At least I talked myself out if that one! I love my daughters and son-in-law; thanks for not expecting a usually typical letter from your mom.