I haven't been normal since 1995

I recently wrote a status about how I haven't seen normal since 1995 but Im glad I found a guy that can handle it...or something to that affect anyways.

While everyone got a bit of a chuckle about it and one person even questioned whether I was even normal for that long, it had a bit of a different meaning.

I haven't been normal since the age of 8, well, come to think of it, I haven't been normal since the age of 4. So I doubt that I have really experience the meaning of "normal" at all in my life. While other kids had weekend trips with their parents camping or hanging out with a backyard barbeque, I was going to doctor's appointments and checking out some really weird food from the local health food store. I became normed to the idea of going to the hospital, it was no longer a "freaking out event" but something I had acquired into my daily life.

People often wonder why I didn't cry about my dad dying or why I never asked about it and all I can think of is that I was extremely prepared and ready for it. I knew it was coming and I knew that someday I would see my dad again and for now this is just what God wanted for our lives and especially my dad's. Even today, yeah I still miss him, but I know that it was what needed to happen and I will see him again someday.

So after my dad died you would think that maybe I would fall into a normal pattern much like my peers, and for the most part my mom worked hard to make sure that happened but inevitably, there were just some things she couldn't prevent.

Not many 8 year olds get to help pick out their new house or furniture or have any say in anything. I in all effect, helped my mom make major decisions about life that a kid normally didn't and for that I am grateful, not bitter for "losing part of my childhood" or something ridiculous like that. I gained life experience that has continued to give me an advantage in life today and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I learned how to fend for myself. As many of you know, my mom hasn't always been in the best of health and when those times flared up and she ended up in the hospital, I was able to take care of things with out panicking, it was a norm for me something I know alot of my peers would be a bit anxious about.

So here there I was, my mom and I are all we have in this world for each other, I have an extra special duty to be there for my mom sometimes handling duties that I see people much older than me doing for their parents and I think to myself, "hope whoever I end up with in this world is ready to handle me and my crazy" and little did I know he was.

This really came to mind the other night. My mom had not been feeling well and with a speculated TIA that may have occurred a week before, a possible ER trip was in the near future.
Aaron was working a closing shift and was not expected to be home until 2 am so we all went to bed. Around 3, I woke up to my mom and Aaron talking so I got up to my mom getting dressed to head to the hospital. Aaron came out a bit surprised to see me and told me he wasn't even going to wake me up and was just going to head to the hospital with my mom and I could catch up later.

That is a bit unrealistic since I know everything about her medical information and would need to be there for her but the sheer thought of him just being ready to stand up and do "his duty" for me and my mom made me speechless. He truly is the person that can handle my crazy. He is there for me when even though I know how to handle it, he knows when to step into a second in command role. I have put a huge title on him but he has never failed me. I figure after what I put him through when my mom almost died in 2008 there is nothing in our relationship that can stop us now.

He really can handle the crazy...and rather efficiently if I do say so myself.

I mean don't get me wrong, he hasn't exactly had the perfect life either, but I think what is great about us is that the abnormalities that we have both had to overcome we have learned from and plan to better ourselves for our future and kids. That dream of the suburban life where we sit in the backyard with a couple of beers while our kids play into the dusk isn't completely out of reach.

I just gotta get a job!!!!!