An Average Confession

Several times in my life my averageness has been laid bare before me, indisputable even under the long shadow of my intensely tremendous self image.

The earliest average-calling came in my senior year of high school, on a day when my math teacher pulled me aside. “I wonder how you feel the class is going,” she asked. “Is it too easy? Too hard? Are you grasping the material?”

“Okay,” I said. “I have to work, but I think I’m getting it.”

“Oh, good,” she said. “I think you’re an excellent gauge for the class as a whole. I’m so glad.”

Some three years later, in the throes of unrequited love, I told a coworker about my current crush, which had surfaced two years before (and would, by the way, continue for two more years).

“You two would make a good pair,” he said. “There’s really nothing too special about her.”

And then, just the other night at a youth group meeting, the book we’re studying noted that the average age that people marry these days is 25–and when did I get married? In the same year I turned 25.

Talk about humbling!