Normal Human Female

Hello, it is I, a person like you, who has appropriate responses and facial expressions. I laugh at only the right things at the right volume. I have gotten better at this with practice and time. I grew up in Michigan where I didn’t feel a belonging, so it was easy to leave. After college I spent a year in LA, same thing. Now almost 10 years in the Seattle area at 5 companies, family close by, some friends and acquaintances. A few grocery store employees recognize me. And yet, I don’t feel a belonging. It’s as if there is some unspoken understanding all people seem to reach that they carry always. Was I built without it or just never picked it up? Are my children going to be the same way? Do other people notice that I lack it? With decades of practice, hopefully not.

One advantage of being human-ish: I’m not worried about belonging in Stockholm. That might be naïve and time will tell. I know I will study how people behave and practice mirroring it back, like I have done my entire life. I will slowly learn Swedish and learn the culture enough to feel at ease. With time, I will probably feel the same way about it that I do Seattle – understanding something without belonging to it.  

Nils is quite different: he was born and raised in Oregon so the PNW is his home, and he cherishes community and creating it. There is a thread that connects us: we both feel empowered to make the life we want, together. We will never shrug our shoulders and settle. Of course, the world isn’t fair, and we are all under the thumb of forces beyond our control. We can simultaneously work for, vote for, donate for the world we want, while also taking on the world as it is and treasuring our one spark of existence that we are allotted.

Maybe that seems like an overly simplistic or obvious stance, but it runs counter to an online vein of millennial cynicism that recycles anger and despair. It’s a “why bother trying?” attitude that excuses numbing our minds with addictive consumption while blunting our dreams for the real world, where life is actually lived. On the other side of the millennial coin is the encouragement to get lost in our own heads – self-policing and self-obsessing over our opinions, feelings, habits, trauma – in a never-ending quest for self-actualization and self-improvement. But this also pulls us from the real world and doing things.

I’ll share some dreams of mine. I dream of…

Having a house with a large yard. The yard having an an arbor over a walkway with climbing roses, a willow tree with a bench under its canopy, and a row of lavender. Having floor to ceiling bookshelves in the living room, and a sewing table where I’ll sew my children’s Halloween costumes every year. Becoming an expert in sturdy blanket forts. Traveling often, even if it’s just a road trip to a nearby town. Being proud of what I do for work and proud to tell my children about it (and maybe they’ll be proud of me?). Having another baby and stretching our hearts out even more. Nils and I riding into our 40s, 50s, 60s together and getting to know him at every age in every light, basking in the warmth of love.

Will I have all of that? Maybe not. I’m not all powerful. But I still would rather freely admit what I want and be let down by circumstance, than deny myself any chance of it. Or worse, be so concerned with perception and visible markers of success and validation that I am lost as an individual.

One more advantage of being human-ish: I think I am fairly selfish, even ruthless, in going after what I want for myself and my family. Before Nils, I had left relationships in a way that one might describe as cold-hearted. What is the utility of dragging out something that hurt me? I have left jobs with a similar calculated practicality. And now with masked men with guns on the streets and a leader with a decent likelihood of launching a nuke (and a population that widely supports all of it)… I’m not one to stick to sunk costs, not with this one spark of existence.