Before I start this particular rant, I need to tell you that I work with teenagers. They are some of the most inspiring, amusing and just plain idiotic people I know, but there are some things they do that drive me absolutely insane.
The first, and probably the worst, of these is that so many of them aspire to be ‘normal’. It seems that it’s a complete disaster (of untold magnitude) if they are seen to stand out from the crowd in any way. I spend an inordinate amount of time saying, usually in a voice dripping with disbelief, that ‘normal is vastly overrated’. They, on the other hand, seem to spend an inordinate amount of time looking at me like I’m from a different planet! I was told by one of my cherubs on Friday that I wasn’t normal. I did a dance. It was a good dance and everything. Admittedly, it probably didn’t help with the whole ‘from another planet’ issue, but it did make them laugh.
It’s always a good day when I manage to get through to one of them that in about two years time even their peers won’t think they’re weird, they’ll just be interesting; the kind of person that people want to spend time with. Even if this success is often measured using very very small units, I’ll take what I can get. Until I can make the understanding universal, I’ll just keep doing what I do; tweedling along being as ‘not normal’ as I can manage!
absolutelynotnormal 