There are all kinds of words to describe a thing or a person who does not fall into our culture’s idea of “correct” or normal.
deviant. odd. weird. abnormal. screwy. batty. kinky. atypical. off.
At the moment I am experiencing an unexplained loss of wifi/google fiber. This correlates exactly to the time I am supposed to be logged into Zoom for a group writing hour. So I quickly attached my Mac to my hotspot and am logged in.
But I am reportedly “unstable.”
This is not the first time I’ve been called whack.
Last week a 16-year-old girl who spent the night in a hotel room with my son called me “crazy.” This was at the moment when we went to retrieve him from the hotel lobby at 2:30 a.m. from two police officers.
Has anyone else ever thought how funny it is that the word “relative” is the word used to describe something in which the meaning fluctuates depending on perception or comparison? From the Cambridge Dictionary online
relative
adjective
formal
US /ˈrel.ə.t̬ɪv/ UK /ˈrel.ə.tɪv/relative adjective (COMPARING)
-being judged or measured in comparison with something else
-true to a particular degree when compared with other things
On a scale from 1 to 10
When we’re driving long trips with the kiddos and have to stop to eat, I ask them how hungry they are — on a scale from 1 to 10. Being their mother, I usually already know the answer. After all, I know their bodies. I’m with them almost every time they eat. I divvy out snacks.
8! 7! 10! 4!
(There’s usually one that isn’t quite body-aware yet — who is really a 7 or 8 but thinks they are a 4. Burger smells will automagically correct this miscalculation.)
Determining one’s hunger isn’t too difficult on a scale from one to 10.
Determining stability and general sanity is another thing altogether.
Self-Evaluation in relation to Others
No wonder Thoreau went to Walden Pond.
Getting off the grid, away from the voices of others, is imperative to hearing myself think.
There’s no escaping the sound of my own inner critic of course. Or the expectation in my Mom’s mental reminders that I should avoid wearing out my welcome or having long hair.
But these are dusty old news. I’m a Gen Xer. By now I’ve learned to navigate — by and large — the old trappings of my inner critic.
The ones that continue to surprise me are these external voices — ie. other people.
Not all of them think I’m crazy.
Some of them sound familiar — a version of my own voice from years passed.
A handful of them push my buttons just so, much to my chagrin.
All of them seem to be holding up mirrors while they speak — to themselves and to me as well.
Well, isn’t that special?
One of the most striking things I learned immediately after Hillary lost to “that man” was one hard truth of who we are as a nation. It was strange because I had thought more people were like me — but, in point of fact — people were in fact JUST LIKE ME.
What I mean was this: I had been looking at myself in the mirror for too long and felt I had comprehended what was around me.
I thought hey! My life experience is special. I “see” others. I’ve lived outside the normal American workaday — living overseas, having master’s degree, able to see life from a blue collar Midwestern viewpoint, but also from a Northeastern enclave view. I’m a good liberal.
I thought I understood what was best. I thought I could “see” people.
So did everyone else. But we could not hear the forest for the echo chamber.
We live in a house of mirrors
Things that seem like the truth may or may not be. What feels like truth may, in fact, be relative.
Does that seem crazy? Couldn’t it be that we are being gaslighted? Or is this conspiracy theory for realz?
There’s a lot of, like, big time immediate fucking world ending problems right now. Here’s a few:
the climate crisis
pending nuclear war with Russia, et al
The Orange Menace
Uh, like, Covid and its future iterations, and humanity’s response to it.
Meanwhile there’s a LOT of super important shit that we really need to get done that keeps getting in the way:
who to have perform on the NEXT Super Bowl halftime show so everyone can love/hate them too
TikTok
Also whatever you call TikTok but on Instagram
Finishing Netflix
Eating Cinnamon rolls
Figuring out why fake alcohol drinks are expensive and a thing.
Fleeing the house of mirrors for an outside adventure is my favorite way to spend a day.
100 fucking percent