Normalcy.

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.
- Steve Jobs 


So, everyone has gone into the craze of "honoring" Steve Jobs. I'm not here to do that. Indeed, he was a genius, a mastermind, and cancer seriously sucks, but I appreciate this quote and I appreciate the vision he had for his life and this world. 
One of my biggest struggles has been with the idea of normalcy. I struggle with the question of whether I will become just another normal person. I hate normalcy. I will just come out and say it now...I don't want to be normal because I think normal is boring, lifeless, dull, void of all vision, bound by social constraints, etc. From middle school, I told my mom "I can't picture myself living like this forever. I can't picture myself living in a house with a big garage, working 9 to 5, coming home and cleaning/cooking, going to sleep, only to have it all repeat itself again the next day."
And now, as I continue my graduate education, I feel myself begin to question if that really is how I'll end up. I think "hmm maybe I would be okay just living in a house and going through the daily motions" and then another part of me thinks "Ah, you're beginning to catch the normalcy bug." It's not long before my soul will just succumb to it. I mean hey, it's normal. What you surround yourself with is what you may eventually just end up with. 
As I read Jobs' quote, I feel it. That unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach, that stirring in my heart that says "you were made to be unconventional." A word God had spoken to me right before I was baptized. It comes up over and over again. I am unconventional but now, I'm trying to fit the round peg in the square hole. I'm trying to convince myself that this is it and this is awesome. But come on, really?
Grad school has made me feel it even more. I become immersed in school, reading, studying...I become "too busy" or "too tired" to pray. I've stopped writing. And I feel...like life is draining from my body. Like the original steam I had, the fervor, is slowly leaving me. 
Sigh. 


I'm fighting. I'll keep fighting. Key point...I was MADE this way. That's something you can't change.