Dr. Seuss once said, “We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”
I love this quote, but I think it neglects the other important weird people in my life — my friends.
I knew no one when I started university in New Brunswick. My university had organized a week-long series of activities to encourage the new students to meet each other, called Welcome Week. I took advantage of this, and attended every single scheduled activity.
I lived in an all-female residence, referred to as a “house”. Our Welcome Week shirts were bright pink. Soon after we moved into the house, we all posed for a picture in our shirts.
After the picture, as we walked to the next activity, I met a girl who lived in the room directly above mine. Her name was Judith, and her talent, as written on the back of her shirt, was “laughing extremely loud”. I don’t remember what we talked about, but she invited me to her room after we’d finished the activity.
I missed home, and for over an hour, I told Judith all about Calgary and why I loved my hometown. She had never been there, but she listened patiently as I showed her pictures of the Calgary Tower, Heritage Park, and Stephen Avenue. After, she showed me pictures of her hometown of Woodstock, N.B.
Judith became one of my best friends. She still is. My first year wasn’t difficult academically, but adjusting to my new life was challenging at times. Judith made me laugh when I was upset and took care of me when I was sick. In our second year, she would turn up her music very loud in the middle of the day and we would dance around her room. We must have looked ridiculous, but that didn’t stop other girls from joining us sometimes.
During our second year of university, Judith introduced me to some of her friends from high school, who were starting their first year. They eventually became my friends. One of them, Jilly, is the kind of person who gets Christmas cards and gifts for everyone because she likes giving.Jilly listened to me when I came to her with a problem, sometimes taking hours of her own time to make me feel better and give me advice. One night, when I was unhappy and worried about something, she gave me some chocolate. Before I left for Argentina, she got all my friends to sign a pillowcase for me.
Jilly also shares an admiration for Johnny Depp with me, and one night we watched a movie together just because he was in it.
While I had a few friends in high school, I had never met anyone quite like me before. In university, I made many friends who were just as quirky as I was. Whether it was a love of writing, as all my journalism comrades shared with me, an admiration for Johnny Depp, or the desire to dance around in the middle of the afternoon, I finally felt like I fit in somewhere. While at times we got on each other’s nerves, as was bound to happen when we spent so much time together, we still stayed friends.
I have now moved back to Alberta, on the other side of the county from them. I miss spending time with them and seeing them every day, but no matter where we are, we will stay friends. It is, after all, difficult to find someone who not only accepts your weirdness but shares it with you.