I Want To Be Average

For years, all I wanted was to be average.

I felt different as a kid, when different meant bad and lonely.

I thought my home was the only chaotic one on our suburban street. I thought my parents were the only ones who fought. I thought my sensitivity and quirky intelligence were ugly.

I had no idea everyone else felt different, too.

I remember sitting on my bedroom floor, listening to the soundtrack from "Pippin" with a high school friend and telling her she reminded me of the song that begins: "I'm your average, ordinary kind of woman."

I meant it as a compliment; she took it as an insult.

Years later, I understand why. Like my friend, I grew up, got married, started my own family with a mortgage to match. And my life became medium: medium brown eyes, medium brown hair, medium build. I was thoroughly average.

Suddenly, average didn't look so good.

Average felt like -- well, like everyone else. Boring. I was stuck in the middle with me.

Surely there was something more. Something interesting.

Be careful what you wish for.

My son, who is now 8 years old, has been "special" all his life. He has ADHD and is also academically gifted. He has always required equal amounts of energy and patience.

Other parents tell me they understand, but I dismiss them. How can they possibly understand? Colter is unique. He is one of a kind. He is ... different.

As I have come to know my son, his friends, their parents, I have come to accept that we are each different in our own way. This is both our blessing and our curse.

It is our fear and our freedom.

What we fear is anonymity. We don't want to die unknown, unappreciated, undistinguished. Alone.

And yet, think of all the now-famous people who toiled in relative obscurity during their lives, only to look remarkable in hindsight. Think of Vincent Van Gogh, who sold one painting during his lifetime. Remember Emily Dickinson, who published seven poems while she was alive -- anonymously.

It is only through the lens of history that this man and woman -- and so many others -- look exceptional. In their day, they woke up every morning, got dressed, ate, did their work, loved, and went to sleep. In many ways -- perhaps even most ways -- their lives followed a predictable pattern; they were average. In other ways, they were different -- eccentric, even.

I believe they found a certain freedom in accepting their differences as ordinary. I know I do. My whole life sighs in relief. I don't have to try so hard. I can just be me.

I can listen to the sound of the fan swirling, the sound of my husband sleeping, the sound of the TV in the other room.

It was the writer George Eliot (actually a woman) who said, "If we had a keen vision of all ordinary life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of the roar which lies on the other side of silence."

I say we should not die of the roar, we should live in the roar. We should swallow the roar. We should become the roar. Because sometimes being ordinary is extraordinary.

Julie Moos is a thirtysomething who lives with her husband and son. Her column appears every other Thursday. To read more of her thoughts, visit MomInTheMirror.com.