What is NORMAL?

I suppose NORMAL is different for everybody. If I looked at my immediate family, NORMAL would mean marriage (the LDS way), children soon after, and then husband and wife fall into a cycle of work at a 9 to 5 to care for the children. Before you know it, life has passed by. Growing up with my cultural heritage and with my religious foundation, NORMAL (according to what I just described) would be what was waiting for me after high school.

But... NORMAL is so far from the life I'm leading now. It takes a bit of courage to not do the NORMAL thing especially if that is what you're conditioned to do. If I had to, I'd know how to do NORMAL. If NORMAL is where life would lead me, I could do NORMAL. But the Universe, the Creator, my God does not see NORMAL for me and I'm quite alright with that.

I suppose I've always had dreams of traveling the world, working for the Peace Corps, visiting Africa, walking the Great Wall of China, serving my people in Samoa, hiking the Outback, studying at an ashram in India, learning Buddhism and Zen at the feet of a great teacher, sleeping in an Igloo in the Eskimo tradition. There are just so many things on my "bucket list" that NORMAL will just have to wait. Or maybe that's just the story I tell myself, that NORMAL is not for me because NORMAL seemed to have stopped after the "marriage" thing because my womb has been barren; unable to conceive. **shrugs** I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my life except I know that NORMAL is just not for me.

It does take a great deal of courage for me to live this life. My last job was so dead-end and so NORMAL that it was sucking the very life out of me. Life was meant to be lived and experienced rather than spent behind a desk. I suppose I have exercised some influence over the college students that have fallen under my stewardship. That has the power to ripple forward, hopefully in a positive manner. I don't regret that portion of it. I actually have a special place in my heart for the few guys and gals that I worked with. Leaving that to come here could possibly be a good thing. We'll see how it all pans out in 2010.

I'm in school now. I can't believe I have successfully been able to finish off one semester. 12 credit hours under my belt in NO TIME. Another 3 will be done by tomorrow. Pretty good for a girl that absolutely HATED the idea of college. These classes are going by so quickly, some so tediously, yet I'm moving right along. I have to get this Bachelors degree before I even think about applying for the Peace Corps. Husband will be nearly done with his Masters program soon and has already applied to a PhD program and the TeachAmerica program.

With the things we've already planned out, I know I'm not going to be in Alabama forever. I'm so grateful for that! Alabama is sucking the life out of me too. Our exit date for Alabama will be by next Fall. I'm so glad! I really do hate this place and I'm trying really hard to like it. I am just not content being here. I feel thoroughly unfulfilled by life here in Alabama and I always reflect back to the beauty I left in Hawai'i and the busy-ness of family.

Though my in-laws are excellent people, they are somewhat recluse and have very little interaction with other families. I'm used to large family gatherings (with close friends and "orphan families") every weekend and especially during the holidays. The complete opposite is true here. No one comes around. The family doesn't go anywhere and I just rather be in the islands, playing Pictionary til our parents tell us we're too loud (even though we're grown now). I'd rather be around all of that, in the most beautiful tropical, breezy paradise than here, cooped up in a house that circulates the same air over and over again. My parents, my family are more adventurous. Their minds are so wide open. I miss that.

I miss Hawai'i.

But anyway, as I shake off NORMAL, I know that I will find the path that will best serve the Creator. When I find it, it will open up in front of me without much effort and I will step right into it with ease and live with NO REGRETS!