Je Suis

Everyone's all Je suis This and Je suis That and yes, the original was rather touching, but since it's been overused and profaned I am going to do the same and be like

Je suis normal.

Early last week I ran through the cemetery in the south part of town and met another runner. He had on all his fancy winter gear and a tight lime green shirt and was moving fast. I know runners are supposed to be one big happy family, but I suddenly felt like he was the enemy, and he was beating me.

Je suis normal.

A couple days ago I ended up in the backseat of some boy's beat-up car, driving 86 E. I was sharing it with a guitar, and a few backpacks, and hunting&fishing stuff, and a bag of cans waiting to be recycled, or maybe they were there to impress his friends. My friend was sitting up front next to him, shuffling us through punk music with a country song thrown in every now and then. My jeans are still stained from the ashes of her cigarette that didn't make it out the open window.

Je suis normal.

That night, I was in the backseat of another car, my brother and Jared up front, driving 86 back west. We were talking about college loans and making lots of money and Christianity. This time Relient K was on, and I knew every word because when I was 13 they were the soundtrack to my life, back when my life was getting into trouble with the Slack kids, and picking flowers and...being stressed about all the biology definitions I had to memorize because I was determined to get a head start on my nursing career? I was always looking ahead, thinking my present was nothing more than preparation for the future. But hey, if I worked hard, it would be an amazing future, right? That's what I was told.

I don't want to blame others for my preconceived ideas of what life should be like, but that's what I'm about to do. Because it's winter and getting a little indignant makes the room not feel so cold. And being indignant is kind of a favorite hobby of mine, since it's free.

The summer camps said, "You are the generation of Christians who are going to stoke revival in America, and end injustice, and bring back chivalry," but they did not tell me that you can love Jesus and not do those things. And pop culture said "If you're skinny enough, you can slip through the doors that are hard to open" but didn't tell me that, no matter the doors, it's possible for a girl to look at her reflection in the storefront window and never think she's skinny enough. And the government said, "If you work hard, you'll make a lot of money," but they didn't tell me that when minimum wage goes up, the price of food goes up the same week.

In different words they all said, "You are amazing and you can change the world," but they lied.

I've been had.

Je suis normal—

—"and life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something." We always laugh at that point in the movie, because it's a joke.

It's not a joke.

But even still, we do laugh. So there is some magic here. And even if the initial realization made me want to cry, being normal kinda takes the pressure off.

And maybe the problem wasn't them, or what they told me. Maybe it was me. I am, after all, normal.