I did Maths to A-Level (yes I know that is surprising, even more that I passed since I am hopeless at basic arithmetic) and sad person that I am I got excited to learn a definition of ‘normal’. It is a line in geometry which is (IIRC) perpendicular to the tangent of a curve.
My quirky mind loved the idea that normal can be defined – and have nothing to do with the matter at hand! As someone who had always felt, or was made to feel, abnormal, a misfit, this was an idea to hug to myself.
I find myself once again wondering about normals. I have got used to being depressed, and what effect that has on aspects of my life, my anxiety in certain situations, my fears. But am I attributing to the depression things that are simply normal bumps in life? I have spoken with some colleagues about my guilt over visiting anxieties, only to find I am not alone. Others also feel nervous and awkward in a range of the situations we find ourselves in as clergy.
Have I got so used to the idea that what I feel is a result of the depression filter that I have a distorted view of what is normal? Do I have a rose tinted glasses view of normality? What if feeling what I do is actually normal but I have forgotten how to recognise it?
In which case am I just being lazy and a whinger after all?
And off I go tying my brain in knots, just as Gabi wandering on the long field lead can do laps round the tree trunk and then wonders why she is stuck!
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