The Christmas Recital

I went to my nephew's Christmas Recital a while back.  I was in a theater full of parents. And parents with parents. And parents with parents of parents. There were a lot of parents there.  I can't remember the last time I was in the same room with this many parents, and being there, in that moment, was very... odd. Like, I have nothing in common with everyone in this room. They're all parents of kids, most of them are married, and can apparently afford to have their kids in art programs and then see those kids perform. For the first time in a very, VERY long time, I'm around a bunch of parents. Straight, cisgender, middle class, conservative, mostly white, suburban parents. And their parents. And their parents' parents. For 2 hours. As children sing Christmas Carols, looking about as enthused to be there as most kids who don't find performing to be much fun. It's a school thing. They worked at this for months for this 10 minutes of glory as this assemblage of parents cheer, wildly.

In this strange environment that's probably perfectly normal to most people, my mind begins to wander, and I begin to ask myself questions. Questions like, "who thought up the concept of clapping? Who decided that this action of slapping our hands together was a way to show appreciation for something? And how come this never seems weird to anyone? What would folks from another planet think of clapping? Would they think it's strange? Would they ask us why we do it, and would we even really have an answer?"

Never mind the ongoing feeling that I have, screaming through my every last nerve that "I really, REALLY don't belong here. These people are too normal.”  I don't know if I'm on the verge of a full-on panic attack or what, but I kept feeling like my entire body was trying to reject the mere concept of me sitting here in this room with all of these nuclear families.

Then, even more questions come up. Now they're personal ones, like "when did you realize that the suburban mom and dad thing wasn't in the cards for you? When did you realize that was something you could never be? Why do you feel so damn uncomfortable in here? Is it because you're directly in the middle of a society you've been desperately trying to escape your entire life?"

And then, we get the existential crap - "Why are you even here? What exactly do you want out of life? Is that even achievable? Because, right now, you're looking around this room hoping there's a single mom, because GOD DAMN you're lonely.... but even then, they're all straight. and cisgender. and BORING. And they have kids, and you... you probably don't really want kids that badly. You'd rather be in a good and secure position before even THINKING about kids, and to be honest, I don't know if that's ever going to happen, because you're a thing the world can't easily process. Your existence is a revolution you never wanted to fight."

And then we come to the root of all of this - "why can't I just be normal, like everybody else? Why can't I have this?"

Because, apparently, I'm not meant to.