"In this world, if you're not insane.....
then you're insane!"

"Insane is the NEW normal."


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In my ripe old age here (37) and isolated living area, I finally fall under the category of "normal" and "boring". Only my closest friends, family, and those I live with know the truth.

However, in my younger years, I could follow my impulses a lot more easily, and wound up sucking along those near me.

On road trips for school jrotc competitions, I'd sneak out to roam the towns, followed by some friends and acquaintances who had experienced or heard about the kinds of 'adventures' we'd wind up with. The instructors knew I took my fellow students out at night, against the rules, but they also knew that we didn't get into major trouble and I always made sure we got back safe..and on time (before they'd get up). LoL, one of the instructors would even signal to me what my time frame was.

I'd come up with ideas but have no plan for implementing them, playing it by ear. Thankfully a small handful of teachers were there to support me and attempt to encourage me to follow through. When I inevitably didn't finish, by then someone else had gotten caught up in the fervor and would take the project/idea over and see it through.

In my more troubled years I did such things as throwing spitwads and paperwads at a teacher/blackboard/ceiling. Never once getting caught, but when it was discovered that the area that this mess was coming from (the area I sat in), the teacher refused to believe that I could have had anything to do with it because I was such a 'sweet innocent'.

My friends would get frustrated because their parents were always saying things like "why can't you be more like [ann]?" But my friends new the truth, that if they were more like me, they'd wind up in even more trouble than they were!!

When I left home I'd follow all sorts of impulses which have lead to numerous experiences...some good, some not so good. Jobs have ranged from being a nanny...to being a topless waitress...to mucking out gold mines...to being an escort...to being a door-to-door book salesperson...to being a receptionist...to managing the sorting machines at a newspaper. Interests have varied as well, usually changing every few weeks or sooner.

When I used to go out dancing with a friend or two, I wouldn't drink, and would designate myself as the driver and 'sane' one for the night. But even though I only drank water or a soda, more often than not, people thought *I* was the drunk one. Probably due to perceiving me as having 'lost my inhibitions'. (hey, what can i say, dancing is a high for me, lol)

I've often been accused of 'behaving inappropriately' by people who have firm ideas of how a person SHOULD behave in certain situations/places. Not that my behavior was out-of-line or anything like that, but because I didn't care what the 'proper behavior' was, and instead stayed as my spontaneous self.



Alas, having a child changed a lot of that for me. I keep saying that my life is 'on hold', and that when she's an adult, I'll be free to be me again. This usually has manta and richard rolling their eyes. Manta because she sees me as being all over the map anyways. Richard because he thinks I'm bad enough now and half dreads, half looks forward to, me being ME.