Why Can’t You Be Normal?

***** I love my Wednesday writing group and have decided to post what I come up with on Wednesday’s here on the blog- especially since lately it seems like the only writing I am actually doing each week is in group. So I hope you enjoy this little story inspired by this quote: ********

Why Can’t You Be Normal?

Her mom was staring at her completely perplexed. It was like she had grown a third tit not developed a relationship with both a boyfriend and a girlfriend. It’s 2021! Why on earth was her mother reacting this way?

“I just don’t get you anymore. I raised you to be normal and this is what you come to me with? Why can’t you be more like Maria?”

Carolyn sighed; it really was all about appearances with her mother. She knew her mom loved her, but this shit was getting old. Love was not the same as acceptance and acceptance was in short supply these days. Her mom needed to be able to go to lunch with her friends and tell them how her daughter was so wonderful AND so normal… how she was on the fast-track in her career, moving to the big city, and soon to be engaged… all of which were true, so why couldn’t that be enough?

Oh yeah, her girlfriend Jess was bunging up the works, so to speak. Not really of course, but certainly the relationship with her was the “one thing” that was ruining her mother’s vision of almost grown-up normality. It didn’t matter that she was now working at one of the best ad agency’s in the city, or that her engagement to Todd, a second year law-student with amazing post-grad prospects, was going full speed ahead… she had even picked out the dress this weekend… but it was Jess. It was always Jess.

Actually, that might not be entirely true, Carolyn thought as she looked at her mother, no words forming to help her get through this same argument for the umpteenth time. If she was dating just Jess, engaged to Jess even… just swap out Todd with Jess and she was sure her mother would be able to work the right angle to make it cool in her social circles. She’d just be the one with the gay daughter. But this? This was …

Well, this was polyamory and bi-sexuality and her mother was not trying to hear it.

“Why isn’t Todd enough?” she’d lamented last time they’d had this “discussion.”

“Why do you need BOTH of them? Isn’t one relationship complicated enough?”

Her mother couldn’t understand. No matter how many times she reminded her that she loved BOTH Carolyn and her younger sister Maria. Her own mother’s love had expanded enough to allow her to love TWO daughters, loving two people was not so different. Isn’t love the great equalizer, growing and stretching to accommodate so many different people in our lives? But ingrained monogamy was wining this battle and Carolyn was tired of fighting.

Maybe it was the sex, not the love? Her mom definitely didn’t talk about sex, and Carolyn was certain that part of her parent’s relationship had ended shortly after Maria was born. So maybe her mom was struggling to imagine Caro in bed with anyone (as mothers often do) let alone enjoying sex enough to have it regularly with two different people?

Carolyn shook her head and came out of her reverie of thoughts when she realized her mother was staring at her expecting an answer, “Mom, there is no normal. There never has been. “Normal” and “natural” are the biggest lies ever created.”