This evening I got out of my friend’s car, rung the husband so he knew it was time to put the kettle on and then I rung E to say hello, and I got a slightly surprised response from both of them, the reason being I said ‘I’m awake’! Why was this surprising? Because that seems so ‘out of the normal’ at the moment. Especially with it being at the end of the day. They are used to a text explaining how rubbish I feel. Over recent weeks I have mainly been tired, confused, and twitching! The weekend was particularly bad, I managed breakfast out on Saturday, then spent the entire weekend on the sofa watching TV. About 4 years ago, this probably would have been ‘normal’ but now it isn’t.

I got quite a few surprised responses at work today from pupils and colleagues, this was due to the glasses and hair being up – as opposed to curly hair and contacts. This of course is what always used to be the ‘normal’ until the hair suddenly went curly and I decided contacts were better for physical activity! To be fair the only reason I was wearing the hair up and my glasses is because I overslept and didn’t have time to get ready properly!

I have to admit it’s got me thinking is there any such thing as ‘normal’? Or is it something we create for ourselves or allow to develop?

Part of the reason for the sofa and TV over the weekend was that I had been violently shaking. Recently I seem to have got in to a cycle of violently twitching, having a seizure, brain clearing, then gradually the brain clouding again until I start twitching again. Therefore, I had assumed that because I was twitching on Friday and Saturday I was heading towards another seizure… so I might as well stay on the sofa as that would be safer! I even allowed it to take over my life, and was too apprehensive to go to Church on Sunday!

However, the seizure didn’t come, I woke up late this morning, and once I’d got through the confusion of not following my ‘normal’ routine I found that for what seemed like the first time this year, I had an entire day of energy and no twitching.

I am aware it may be a one off day, it may also be a beginning response to new medication that I have started BUT one thing it has done is challenge me to stop making expectations of what will happen based on what I think is ‘normal’ instead I’m going to see what happens each day, and respond to that!

There is no such thing as normal… so don’t try to plan or judge your life according to what you think it is?