Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Sometimes "Normal" is a Compliment

It’s funny to think of the little things that cement a relationship.

For example, I knew that Brentton was going to be my husband when we were on our first in-person date. We were in Toys R Us (yes, I know) in the Lego section and I started to sing, “Darkness…” and he finished with “No parents.” And as silly as that Lego Movie reference sounds, it really turned the tide for me.

Brentton said that he knew I was the one for him when we were still long-distance dating. During one of our instant-message type conversations, I told him that I could handle him. In the moment, I actually felt kind of silly saying it…but I knew I had to say it. It was almost as if I was being told to say it. To me, it didn’t mean all that much, but to Brentton, who had been told by countless ex-girlfriends that they couldn’t “handle” his emotions or “handle” his personality, being told “I can handle you,” was something he had never heard before.

In the same way, Brentton gave me a completely different kind of compliment one day when he told me that he liked me because I was “so normal.” That sort of stopped me in my tracks for a moment. I had never been called “normal” before. If you had asked me before that moment if the word “normal” was complimentary, I would have shrugged and said no. But, for some reason, when it first met my ears, I loved it.

I realized that I had always been considered a bit of a class clown by my non-theatre friends, and by my family, “a drama queen,” as my brother likes to call me. So many people had pointed out my differences, but no one had ever identified with me enough to call me “normal.”

I guess after you’ve spent your life feeling different from everyone, it’s nice to find someone who is just as different as you are, who finds those differences to be well…normal.

When you’re in these moments, they don’t always strike you as turning points, but later when you’ve had time to reflect, you realize that those are the moments that changed everything. Those are the moments where you’ll look back some day and realize it was your Donna Noble, “Turn Left” moment (a little nerdy reference for you Whovians out there).

No comments:

Post a Comment