What is Normal?

I've been thinking about the concept of normal lately. I think it's a different range depending on where you live. I went to California 8 years ago and I was positively conservative. Here in North Dakota I'm a bit outside the range of conservative, drifting precariously into eccentric and incomprehensible. But I don't think anyone's "normal" - I think we all look at others in relation to how we perceive ourselves. I'm over 6 feet tall, so I think most people are short. To most of them, I'm tall - all a matter of perspective.

I think about the changes that have been occurring in my body for the past year. I've gone from fearing brain tumors, ovarian cancer, MS, chronic fatigue, colon cancer - if I feel a pain somewhere, it's got to be bad. It WAS rough, but I'm still alive, so that means something, doesn't it? Tammy was doing cranial sacral on me yesterday, and I told her I was curious about my blood sugar, as last October it was 103, up from the 99 in July. She started laughing, then apologized. "I'm sorry to laugh," she said, "but I just saw your body roll its eyes at what you just said." I didn't think it was that funny, as I heard my body talking at the same time I was talking to Tammy, and my body said, "I'm so g*d*med sick of her thinking there's something wrong with me all the time." Now you may ask me, "How could Tammy "see" my body rolling its eyes, and how could I "hear" my body talking to Tammy?" and I'll tell you the body is a separate entity from who "we" are. So is our mind - our Spirit is really who "we" are, what animates us - our Spirit inhabits our body, and we've "hired" our body to take good care of us this time around. So when I do my healing work on people, I hear their bodies talking all the time - "tell her to stop drinking Diet Coke... I love to walk ... I need to be outdoors more ... I need more rest ... I don't like coffee." Usually we don't listen to our bodies, or push them to do what we want them do, fill them up with junk and poison, then wait until something crashes to go to the doctor and get a pill to shut the body up, or get an operation to cut the offending part out of us.

But that's not normal, I don't think. I listened to James Chappell's CD on curing diabetes, and he said the medical community can't cure anything - all it can do is treat, and I never looked at it like that before, but I believe that's true. That's why I'm interested in all things alternative and natural - how can I SUPPORT my body to best do its work, and not get in its way or hurt it? I don't want to end up like my beautiful, wonderful mother - almost at the end of her life at 85, diabetic, with heart problems, artificial hips, and taking 158 pills a week. I want to be 85 and sweating because I've worked in the garden for 3 hours. I want to be 85 and trying a new eggplant parmigiana recipe. I want to be 85 and sitting on a beach in Florida watching the sun set with the seagulls.

So maybe I'm not normal; maybe you're not, either. Maybe the greatest gift we can give each other is the gift of individuality. To encourage independence and free, intelligent thought. Maybe it's okay, even desirable, that you believe something differently than I do. I want to hear what you think, I want to hear what you believe. I want to see a different perspective than my own, so I can become more of a 360 degree person. Then maybe the ALL will BE the norm. I believe that, I truly do.