The Gift of Normal

Normal often seems to be used as a slightly derogatory term – the beige of adjectives. It’s a word that can flatten things, a way of describing something while quietly implying underwhelm: a normal day, a normal film, a normal person, a normal outfit. Normal can sound like the absence of colour or spark. I think normality deserves a rebrand – a shout out. Because normal, in all its quiet steadiness, is the fabulous peak of the bell curve of life, the perfect temperature for the porridge of experience.

A person walks towards a sunrise.

Normality is a gift we don’t notice until it’s gone. When life has been dominated by anxiety, trauma, or addiction, the ordinary can feel like an extraordinary state of grace. It’s the ability to notice the sunrise as you dress unaided, to watch the news without being overwhelmed, to walk through a supermarket without panic, or to deal with the day’s demands without feeling crushed.

In counselling, amongst the vast array of emotions and experiences people can bring with them, there can be a deep yearning for something that might be called normal. A normal job. A normal relationship. A normal way to feel or to think. A normal relationship with food, alcohol, work, or family. It’s the desire not for fireworks, but for footing – the kind of emotional equilibrium where one can breathe easily, where the days have rhythm and the nights bring rest.

Normal doesn’t mean unfeeling or static – it means regulated, connected, and present. It’s the nervous system at rest. It’s the point at which our emotional weather clears enough for us to see the world and ourselves more fully.

In therapy, as in life, I’m not sure many of us are looking for much more than the peace of feeling “normal” again. And that peace can be hard-won. I’ve also learned that normal is not a static destination. It shifts, grows, and flexes as we do. What feels normal after heartbreak is different from what feels normal after recovery. The landscape changes, but the longing remains – to live in a world that feels safe enough to simply be.

So here’s to normal – to the return of appetite, sleep, connection, laughter. To the gentle pulse of routine. To being able to say, without irony, “It’s been a normal day,” and mean it as the quiet triumph it really is.