lately, i have been finding myself exceedingly normal.

with normal hands and a normal face, framing normal thoughts from a twenty-one-year-old brain. with glossy eyed ignorance of the world, the way things work, and the fragility of this life. with a mind full of simple, idealistic views of people and romance; of what and how a life should be.

i have no great ideas about the universe and how it began. i have no changes to paint on our society or stitch among the stars and stripes. i have no concept of my place in the world.

i have no great achievements and i have only fragile plans for a comfortable future. i have no commencement speeches and i have no beautiful prayers to offer a God that might or might not find me worth listening to. i have no promises. i have nothing but flimsy faith and a flawed sense of purpose and motivation.

i am normal and simple.


i have nothing but honest words and the hope that we are not completely alone in this world. when viewed along the great arc of time, seventy or eighty years of experiences and emotions and interactions will probably mean very little. small ripples in a pool requiring waves.

in the grand scheme of things, my life or my death will have no effect on the earth in its spin or on gravity and its pull. there are some things that will never change. there are some things that are just always normal.

but i am also coming to grasp the complexity of being normal in this world. to appreciate the simple things for what they are, and to respect the seasons and sunsets and tides and wars and the flaws of our era as things that will always be. to welcome the simplicity of my hands and my face and my thoughts and yet understand the complexities that lie beneath the surface of that simplicity. to acknowledge the strength of the constants and yet to strive for greater changes in that which i can change.


so i have been finding myself normal.


but that has been a good thing.