I’ve been living a façade. There I said it. I feel like I should be standing in front of a group of strangers, saying “Hi, my name is Sue and I’ve been living a façade.”

What? You think to yourself, as I would probably be thinking to myself as well.

Most of the time, you may hear someone saying that they have been living a lie. Well, I don’t like to lie and am not very good at it, so for me, it’s a façade that I’ve been living.

It looks pretty normal on the outside… but on the inside, I feel like I’ve been searching all my life for “normal”. What is normal? I’m not sure.

Growing up I never felt normal. My family did not seem like everyone else’s family. We were loud…my parents fought a lot throughout my childhood…there were problems with people getting into trouble (without naming names) and all I wanted to do was get out of there.

So, I tried to become invisible. When you are invisible, nobody pays attention to you. And if they are not paying attention, then you can try to slide by. I drifted through school. I did not apply myself and mostly did not have to apply myself to get decent grades. Imagine if I had applied myself. Who knows?

I have worked since I was 12 years old. I had the paper route that each of my siblings had had before me. We all delivered the New York Daily News before school for years. It gave me money for the video games down at the corner candy store. I had that route until I was 16 years old and started my first real job at Woolworth’s Luncheonette for two years. The real money of $3.35 an hour, which was minimum wage at the time. And after that, I was a cashier for many years, even on college breaks and summers.

And I got out. I went far away to college (within the state though) and then found for the first time, the beginning of the independence. Except nobody tells you what to do with your independence.

It is kind of a Catch-22. Here you go…you are free…away from grown-ups…on your own…now go and live your life!

Um, hello, what does that mean? What does that look like? How do I go about doing this? That is where the independence meets the road.

So, I graduated college and had to figure out my life. I had no place to fall back upon. My parents were divorced and getting on with their newly single lives. And well they should have. But there was no place to stay that felt like home anymore.

I had to pull up my big girl pants and carry on…and I did. And I feel like I haven’t stopped running on the hamster wheel since then. Until now…where I can think and breathe for a minute and examine my life…such as it is. 

How about you? 

Are you running a million miles an hour just trying to keep up and tossing all the balls in the air while juggling job, partner, kids, and hobbies? 

It can be tough and you are not alone. It is not easy. 

Sometimes, you think everyone else has it figured out, but a lot of us are just figuring out the rest.