I look at the people who surround me and tell myself, this is normal.

If I don’t have what they have, I think that I am abnormal and naturally want what they have. That it’s normal to be married. That it’s normal to have children. That it’s normal to own a house and a car and a well-decorated house. That it’s normal to eat organic, local foods. That it’s normal to spend more than $50 to eat a meal and drink wine. That’s normal.

But then what happens if you are against the grain? How do you fight it if you make choices that are so vastly different? What if you already choose not to drink and you just never drink? Do you remind people that you don’t drink so that you don’t get weird looks of “are you pregnant”? Do you use your full words and not match the language around you?

What if you choose to be unmarried and childless? That it’s not that you don’t believe in marriage or parenthood, it’s that you don’t believe it for yourself.

But I know that I look out at the people who surround me and I think: that’s normal. I want to be normal.

All so that they will love and accept me.

I ignore it, already warm in my bed. Any text message that arrives at this time can be answered tomorrow. Or if it’s not accessible on my computer, it’s not important right now, because I don’t want to reach for my phone right now.

But then, the doorbell rings. It is only a few things. “Where are my pants?” I say aloud to my computer.

It is silent, because I am alone in my room. My blankets are strewn all over the place and for a moment, I want to stay covered underneath my down comforter, the only thing that was allowed to stay.

It is an obligation and I find shorts. I think that I am wearing them backwards and I quickly find my flip flops underneath my junk. I open my door and turn on the lights. The stairway is filled suddenly, hopefully to let the person outside know that I am coming. I am coming, I would say, but I know the person won’t hear it.

I get to the bottom of the staircase and fling up open the door.

Outside the gate, my roommate stands, “Sorry.”

“No problem,” I say as I put one foot onto the welcome mat opening the gate. “No problem, I was here anyway. I am sorry that I ignored your text message.”

“I didn’t move here so that I can be warm,” I say about living in San Francisco. “I want it to be in the 60s all the time.”

When I wake up in the morning, I love the chilled air that seems to nip at my face, causing me to wrap myself tightly into my down blanket. It’s not that I am hiding. It’s the delicious feeling of receding sleep and the cool air brushing across my cheeks. Then I wake up. Yes, there may be a bit of goosebumps. But that’s why I have a New Zealand wool rug in my room to spare my feet with the unpleasant feeling cold hardwood floors. Then I step into slippers and slide into the bathroom. The window in the bathroom must always stay open because the room lacks a fan to air out the humidity of a shower. So the cooler air hits me and I huddle as I pee, brush my teeth, and wash my face.

I stare at myself in the mirror and feel my body warming up.

It’s warming up outside. Here is where I may depart for a job for some early morning meeting or I may slunk back to my desk, lifting open my laptop and drift my fingers over my keyboard. I resist checking Facebook and instead gaze over my email. But perhaps it’s too late, social media has taken over. I am in a flow now, browsing mindlessly and clicking 10 things you didn’t know about your life. And yes, my window is drafty. One of the two windows—the other being the bathroom window—in the apartment that is single pane because it doesn’t face the back or the front. It’s the side windows and the landlord doesn’t care how it looks and the cool air comes in anyway.

But I don’t care. My fingers are happy in the temperature. They do remember the day when the temperature had fallen to the 40s and how it froze there, unable to move, and they begged to be in a cafe. But I hesitated, loving the coolness too much and the comfort of my chair and my room.