The Single Woman’s Dash of Sass: Normal Gets You Nowhere

Quotes of the Day:

When are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage. ~Alice Hoffman

Normal is only ordinary; mediocre. Life belongs to the rare, exceptional individual who dares to be different. ~V.C. Andrews

Normal gets you nowhere. ~Kelly Cutrone

The Single Woman Says:  

I went to the beach with my family last week – a nice little respite in the midst of my somewhat chaotic life – and though it didn’t exactly go according to MY plan, beyond a doubt it went according to the MASTER plan.

I have always led a very colorful life, with things happening to me that often defy explanation and reason. This can go both ways – sometimes they’re brilliantly wonderful things and other times they’re awesomely bad things – but whichever way the cookie crumbles, I have learned to really appreciate my random, technicolor, unexpected journey through life.

Last week as I was relaxing on the beach with a good book, my mom called my cell phone to somewhat frantically convey to me that the condo next door to ours had caught on fire and our condo was filling up with smoke. My dad was in the shower and my mom was trying to force him out of the bathroom and into the hallway, where everyone was starting to evacuate to. My dad, thinking it was merely shower steam filling up the bathroom and in mid-shampoo, didn’t heed my mom’s instructions and was somewhat startled to peek out of the shower and find a hotel employee shouting for him to exit the condo pronto. Meanwhile, I was racing up to our room from the beach, a bevy of firefighters on my tail, my very Zen beach-like expression replaced with one of abject horror as I rounded the corner to find my mom struggling to balance a stash of our valuables. The smoke was starting to recede in our condo, leaving behind an acrid, pungent odor of wet ashes, not dissimilar to that of a BBQ pit. Even now, several days later, I walk down the hall and leave people not so much inspired as inspired to roast wienies in my wake, as the smell clung to our clothes and belongings and seems unwilling to let go anytime soon. And though this scenario was FAR from the type of situation my parents and I had hoped to find ourselves in (I expected my SKIN might get a little sunburned, never suspected my WARDROBE would) on this trip…after the smoke had subsided and the firefighters were gone and the arsonists next door had been given a stern talking to by the hotel staff (okay, to their credit, it WAS an accident)…all my parents and I could do was look at each other and laugh. We laughed until our sides hurt and then we laughed some more – because what else can you do when your perfectly laid plans go, literally, up in smoke…but build a bonfire and roast some S’mores?

I say all this to encourage you today. Maybe your life is FAR from normal. Maybe your itinerary changed at the last minute, you missed your turn, or you set out for one destination and arrived at a different one altogether. Maybe you haven’t followed the rules and you feel like a walking reality show and you’re certain that any minute, Ashton Kutcher is going to jump out of the bushes of your life, screaming that you’ve “been Punk’d!” But think about it: Wouldn’t you rather risk all the craziness and the hijinks and the detours for a chance to live your life wildly, beautifully, vividly IN COLOR? You can choose “normal” if you want, and nothing bad may ever happen to you, but chances are nothing good will, either. I encourage you today to let your life be as crazy and unplanned and messy as it’s gonna be…and to celebrate the sheer wildness of being extraordinarily unique. After all, if you wanna leave footprints on the sands of time…you’ve gotta be willing to risk getting your feet a little dirty.