What is Normal?

      There are a lot of people who like to remind me on a regular basis that I am not normal. Actually most of the time, they just like to laugh at my completely different set of morals and quirky behaviors. There is one fact that I do know: there is no such thing as normal, just varying degrees of weird. I know my life experiences aren’t anywhere near normal and I’m perfectly at peace with that. I like to think my childhood has given me an undeniably unique perspective on life. I grew up in world of contradictions. I lived in two very different worlds. It all depended upon which parent I was with. I had a mother who raised us in the conventional manner. She kept us in multiple extracurricular activities and brought up children with stellar grades and who were expected to have matching manners. She brought in the degree of stability that every child needs. She excelled as a single parent and performed better than many children brought up in a unified household. There is no question that she is the person in my life that I most look up to and I will count it as my greatest accomplishment in life if I can be half the mother she has been.

     Even under the care of such a wonderful human being, most of my quirks and truly influential moments come from the less stable part of my life. My father was a wonderful man who loved his children to a fault, but stability was not his forte. The safe reason for that was he could barely take care of himself let alone three children on his own. My mother did a lot for him while they were married. Looking back, I see now that those ten years were like caring for four children rather than three.

      My father was all book smarts and had absolutely zero common sense. He didn’t know how to clean a house or how to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Marching to the beat of his own drummer was an understatement. He didn’t seem to realize that you must set limits when it comes to your children and that there is a level of appropriateness in what your children should and should not know at a young age.

For example, here are some examples that others might call missteps in parenting:

• Allowing your 10 year old to watch Silence of the Lambs
• Leaving your sex toys and porn within view of your 12 year old
• Allowing your 14 year old to steal the neighbor's dog
• Buying your 16 year old handles of 100 proof vodka
• Offering your 17 year old marijuana

      The saddest part of this coin is he probably did all of this as a way to spite my mother, because each action was fronted with the promise that we wouldn’t tell her. Even with these mistakes, some of the things he introduced me to, I feel that everyone should be aware of. When my father came out of the closet, I learned about an entirely different culture. Interacting with the gay community has given me the chance to develop a much more open mind than I would have had by never leaving my sheltered bubble in Springboro, Ohio. My father decided to maintain a residence in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Dayton for when he was in Ohio. It was not uncommon to hear gunshots or to meet people who did not have as lucky a home life as I was blessed with. My father was heavily involved in animal rescue and I got to experience the rehabilitation of severely abused animals as well.  I was thrown into a radically liberal atmosphere from a somewhat conservative one after my parents divorced. At 17, I became involved enough in politics that I decided to work the election. This is a direct result of my experiences with my father and the community with whom he surrounded himself.

      All this said, my father was a very good man despite all of his faults and there are a great number of people who will attest to that. When the people he was closest to look at me, they see him. I, personally, like to think some of my best attributes came from him. I got my love of service, animals, and people from my father. I have developed his overwhelming confidence and knack for anything academic and I, like him, would go to the ends of the Earth for someone I love.

      Overall, my childhood was hallmarked by interaction with opposite spheres of society and these experiences ultimately complimented each other enough to get me a uniquely well-rounded childhood. I lived so many fronts. I got to grow up in a yacht club, an affluent suburb, and a ghetto. I got to grow up in a traditional structured household and an alternative one. I got to grow up in a conservative town and a liberal city. I have lived with the underrepresented and politically undermined and the people who have societal influence. I got to experience it all because my father didn’t always play by the rules and had no problem forging his own path. Some people may say that I had a screwed up childhood; I like to think it was exquisitely eccentric.

What is my Legacy?

      April 7, 2013 will be the one year anniversary of the day I lost one of the most important men in my life. At 11:30 in the morning on the eve of Easter, I got a phone call from my father's boyfriend informing me that I needed to get to the hospital as quickly as I could because my dad was in bad shape. I had spoken to my father only 12 hours before and had to go abruptly because there was someone on the other line. We quickly made plans for him to drive me back up to school the next day because my car was in Syracuse. I never imagined that 3 minutes would be the last time I ever spoke to him.

      I arrived at the hospital at noon because thankfully I had taken my mother to work that day and had her car. I came in and was informed that he was still in the emergency room and that they were going to be admitting him due to a large pulmonary embolism. Thirty minutes later they let me back to his room and as I walked through the door, he started coding. I got pushed back and out towards a window and watched as they started CPR and used the paddles to shock life into him 3 times. As soon as he was stabilized, they whisked him away to the ICU.

      After coding 17 times that day and enduring 2 different surgeries, I was approached as the next of kin. I was informed that there would be a good amount of brain damage and that he probably was not going to come back. They asked for consent to end extraordinary measures. He lasted until around 11:30 PM, just long enough for his mother to see him one last time.

      The hardest thing I have ever had to witness is the heartbreak that my brothers, his brothers, my family had to go through; telling my family that my father was dead was devastating.

      Going through something like that really puts your life in perspective. I have learned so much in the last year as a result of it. People come first. The people in your life are your legacy when you're gone. When you lose someone, you don't look back and remember with reverence the degree they earned. You remember the way that they touched your life. Losing my father made me completely reconsider my life. What would people remember if I died today?

      Well, I can tell you that I didn't like the answer a year ago. A year ago, I would be remembered as the depressed kid who couldn't pull her life together to save it. I was the kid that people honestly expected to see in the ground before graduation. I was scaring my best friends on a continual basis with my depravity and stupid actions. What kind of a legacy is that to leave? Not one that I would be proud of.

      In these last months, I have done my best to improve my legacy. I want to be the friend that you can depend on to always have their life together. I want people to see me, not as someone who is depressed or helpless, but as someone who has confidence in herself. I want my friends and family to know how much I love and appreciate them. I feel like that is something you can't tell people enough, that you love them.

      Almost two years ago, my best friend told me something that I didn't quite understand at the time. He said, 'The world is your oyster.' I feel like I can finally put that into practice. It isn't acceptable to sit idly by and watch the world pass you. For the first time in a very long time, I am in a fantastic place in my life. I have friends whom I love and who love me in return. I have a purpose in life: be the friend that you'd like to have. Leave a legacy that you're proud of.

      It is tragic that what led me to this realization happened. I wish I had realized sooner that I needed to be a better friend. I needed to put the people I love first. Sometimes, it takes losing something in order to realize that nothing in this world is guaranteed and that you need to take advantage while you have the chance. Life is a series of moments that you can never get back and you never know how many you have left. Love is the answer to true happiness and it isn't just the love that you receive. It's the love you give.

Growing Up Gay

   

      With all this crazy DoMA and Prop. 8 stuff going on in the Supreme Court recently, there has been a lot of debate about gay marriage. It's being discussed on the news, in social media, in my classes; it's everywhere. I, honestly, find it astounding that people are still of the opinion that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. They obviously grew up on some other planet than I did. In class today, a kid tried to argue that a marriage was only for the intent of making children. He said there was no point in two men or two women marrying because they cannot procreate. He went on to say that children raised by gay and lesbian couples were at a disadvantage to those raised by straight ones. I am not even to get into the flaws in his argument that marriages now are only for making babies. Instead, I'd like to address his claim that children raised by gay and lesbian couples are somehow disadvantaged in approximately the same way I addressed it in class.

      I have lived both sides of the spectrum. I have one heterosexual parent and had one that was homosexual. I have grown up in the same house as a transgender individual. I have been raised by a couple united in marriage. I have been raised by two people who were later divorced. I have been taken care of by two men and by a man and a woman. I can honestly say, no matter which side of the coin you analyze: I have and had two excellent parents. They brought me up to respect others and to respect myself. They taught me to take pride in myself and help any other person in need. I learned from them that no matter what you always stand up for what you believe and support the people you love. They instilled the humility to know my weaknesses and to ask for help. They molded me into the person that I am today. Someone who graduated high school with a 4.0 GPA. Someone who is actively involved at her university and performs around 100 hours of community service a semester. Someone who is happy, healthy, and makes the effort to succeed in anything that they put there mind to.

      It doesn't matter if the person that raised you is gay, straight, or transgender. It doesn't matter if you are raised by a single parent or a happily married couple. What matters are the morals they teach you and the strengths that they instill in you. A parent's job is to mold their offspring into a productive member of society and if they can accomplish that, they have succeeded. Anyone can be a parent if they are willing to put in the time and energy required to care for another human being.