09/12/2024
There is no such thing as an ordinary life.
Have you ever thought that your life wasn't as interesting as other people's and that maybe it wasn't even worth telling others your story?
In my work I have often come across people who, at least initially, talk about their lives using rather frequently the adjective "normal".
E.g. "I had a normal childhood", "I was a normal teenager", "I have a normal family".
The first thing I wonder in these cases is what is there on the other side of “normality”.
That is, if it hadn't been "normal", what would their life have been like?
Problematic? Exceptional? Adventurous? Strange? Unpredictable?
The second thing I wonder is why that person chooses to put a series of certainly significant events under the umbrella of "normality".
I often have the feeling that all the "apparently normal" lives are lives full of details, choices, hardships, challenges, conquests, which could not find any space to be told.
Maybe these are the lives of people who try not to cause any problems, and then "normal" becomes a way of reassuring others that "everything is fine".
Or perhaps these are people who have made repeated attempts to talk about themselves and have come up against something more "important" or more "urgent", so they learned they are uninteresting or unimportant for others.
Giving space and voice to the "whys" behind one's choices and to the "feeling" characterising life experiences is a way of breaking down, pickaxe after pickaxe, the wall of normality and really start telling your story.
No life is ordinary.
