May 16, 2021
Dear Diary,
It was my New Year’s resolution to join Twitter this year. Last year I resolved to decrease my screen time, but now I want to stay connected. My friend Cassie who uses Twitter all the time told me it’s awful and I’ll regret it. But how bad can it be?

May 17, 2021
Dear Diary,
I scrolled through Twitter in the morning. Lots of interesting terms on there. I managed to pull myself away from my phone for a work-related Zoom call. My boss started talking strategy and when he asked if anyone had anything to add, I said, “We should normalize reaching out to customers directly to increase our sales.” I was embarrassed at first, because I realized I’d gotten the word “normalize” from my Twitter feed. But then a couple of people nodded afterwards, and my boss said, “Good point.” I felt a rush!

May 18, 2021
Dear Diary,
I didn’t do much today because I was keeping up with the Twitter discourse. But that’s good! I actually think that we should normalize utilizing social media to talk about things. Not everything has to be an in-person conversation, you know? Not enough people are talking about that. I’m going to go tweet a thread about it.

May 19, 2021
Dear Diary,
This morning, my husband told me that I’d been talking in my sleep and that I must have been dreaming about someone named Norma. He told me I’d been saying that this “Norma” was a liar.

I don’t know a Norma. So naturally I said, “I don’t know where that came from, but we should totally normalize sleep-talking.”

Suddenly he exclaimed, “That’s what you were saying!” Apparently, he thought I was saying “Norma lies” when I was actually saying the word “normalize.” That’s right. I dream of normalizing things. While everyone else is having sex dreams about Brad Pitt or whatever, I’m having dreams about breaking the stigma. The stigma against what I’m not sure, but still. Pretty cool! Anyway, once we finished having that conversation, I checked Twitter to see who we were all dunking on today.

May 20, 2021
Dear Diary,
After work, I had a FaceTime call with my friend Cassie. She told me what her parents had been up to and then asked me about mine. I told her they were “good,” and then I followed that up with, “Normalize adult friends asking about each other’s parents!”

At first she smiled and said, “Yeah, we should do that more often.”

Then I boldly yelled, “Normalize it!”

She was like, “Okay, I literally just asked you about your parents. I don’t know what you’re yelling at me about.” I thought Cassie would understand since she’s on Twitter. I’m calling for real change here! All of the greatest thought leaders are talking about normalizing stuff. Cassie’s rude response didn’t show much awareness of that.

May 21, 2021
Dear Diary,
I got in trouble at work today because I misplaced some company money. By “misplaced,” I mean that I used it for personal expenses, which apparently isn’t the right “place” for that money to go. When my boss confronted me about it, I said, “We really need to normalize focusing on self-care instead of money.” My boss told me if it happens again I’m fired. Some people are just intimidated by a woman who has a big vocabulary. Or one semi-big word in her vocabulary.

May 22, 2021
Dear Diary,
Today when my husband and I kissed, I yelled, “Normalize this love!” He then pointed out that we’re a cisgender heterosexual couple where the man is taller than the woman and our idea of a good time is a night in with pizza and Friends reruns. He said that all of that is normalized in our society already. I lashed out at him and ran to the bedroom, slamming the door behind me. I soon found myself wishing I had my phone with me so I could tweet, or at least peruse my feed. I eventually went back to the living room to get my phone, and I apologized to my husband since he was in the living room anyway. Once I got my phone, I tweeted, “Normalize apologizing to your partner after a fight.”

May 23, 2021
Dear Diary,
This morning I tweeted, “Normalize expressing yourself freely.” Then, I had an appointment with my therapist. I was hoping she’d be thrilled to hear about all of this. Twitter is all about therapy language, right? But she told me I’m obsessed with social media and the rhetoric surrounding it. She said I might want to separate myself from Twitter for a little while. I left in a huff, but then realized she was right. I had to make a change.

So I went back to the tweet about expressing yourself freely, screenshotted it and posted it to my Instagram. I have a whole different set of followers on there (people who think I’m hot). I’m so glad I got out of that Twitter rut and made a real impact #SundayThoughts #SpeakYourMind