Be Brave, Courageous, Interesting, Crazy, Difficult, Weird, and Downright Complicated. But Don't You Ever Be Normal.

You know what’s fucked up?

Normal. Normal is so fucked up.

For example, it’s normal for expats to drink daily in Costa Rica. This is a terrible idea, and yet, because it’s done over and over again, it’s become normalized. NO ONE WILL GIVE YOU THE STINK EYE FOR SLUGGING A BEER AT 10AM, Y’ALL.

It’s also normal to check your phone as soon as you wake up, answer texts as soon as they’re received, and assume, wrongly, that you have to be on Instagram (or else.)

I think about the dangers of normal all the time.

How easy it is to fall into patterns, when the people around you are also falling into those patterns. When you stop feeling self-conscious about a behavior, because that behavior is now the expectation.

This is a problem.

Just because something is normal, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. It means it’s normal.

…And it also means you’re numb.