Are YOU Normal?

Dear lovelies.....Are YOU Normal???

Somebody recently told me that I need to make my website for The Ruby Slippers and Flawed is the New Fabulous look more “NORMAL.”  They told me it was too “artsy and colorful” to be taken seriously…..and for a day or so, I stared at those websites thinking maybe they were right.  Then it occurred to me that what is reflected on those sites actually IS my “NORMAL.”   Love it or leave it, what you see is what you get lovelies….  I’m the sort of girl who doesn’t like to color in the lines, I have a fear of living my life in a box and I don’t WANT to be just like the woman sitting next to me.  She may be beautiful, and sassy, fabulous and funny, and I will be the first in line to celebrate her, but BE like her?  No thank you.

What exactly IS this NORMAL thing I keep hearing people talk about?  Where is the definition and photo that shows me what it specifically means to BE normal?  Was there some sort of memo sent out that tells me what I am supposed to look and act like?? 

Your version of normal might be a crisp white shirt and a cubicle in an office, or maybe it’s an expansive art studio with ephemera as far as the eye can see…..perhaps your normal is a briefcase and a navy suit, or big wild flowers woven through your hair…. That’s what makes it so much fun….we each have our own version of NORMAL and frankly I think it’s quite fabulous!  I love when I can be in a room with 50 women and each one of them has their own story, their own look, personality, and so on. 

Can you imagine walking down a crowded street and bumping into one person after another who looks just like you?  I would lose my mind!  I think instead, we ought to launch a campaign to eliminate the word “normal” from our vocabulary.  Telling somebody they need to be more NORMAL is like telling a person not to be themselves or that the version of who they are showing the world is somehow wrong or not enough.  Who are we to judge?  I think that we need to focus on inviting people to be whatever their version of NORMAL might be.  We need to tell our daughters that just because she doesn’t look like a cheerleader or the model  on the cover of a magazine, she is still the MOST beautiful version of normal we ever did see.  We need to celebrate what makes us unique, we need to embrace that perhaps MY version of NORMAL is not something you would like to try on, but it doesn’t need to be! 

Whatever your version of normal is, I pray that you just choose to embrace it.  I hope that you have blue streaks in your hair, or maybe beautiful grey hair….I hope that you wear big fancy flowers, or maybe even a tie….I hope that you are an intentionally exact representation of who you are each and every day…even if you are constantly changing.  I hope that you cling to your version of normal and wear it as a big bold banner for all the world to see.

I’m quite certain that there really is no NORMAL, there is just you and I being who we are and regardless of what visual story we choose to share with the world on any given day, as long as we are happy with it, then that suits me just fine.

Today I hope you will stop to look around and celebrate each and every version of NORMAL that might pass you on the street…..celebrate that we have another day to be a walking, talking canvas… each as beautiful as the next!!  To heck with NORMAL lovelies…..it’s far more fun to just be YOU!

Wishing you buckets of rainbow colored bliss!

Heather