Before I get into these weird ramblings I want to warn you I just did a word check to see how many times I wrote “Weird” in here and I only say it 43 times. So thats not too bad. Kind of weird of me. Shoot now I am up to 44. So enjoy this weird post! 45 feels better than 44.
I remember a day in eighth grade walking into gym class excited to see my friends. I was halfway into the locker room when I heard someone say my name while talking to someone else. I instantly stopped mid step and listened:
“Gosh Codi really is so weird, she just says weird things all the time and is so not cool. Let’s hurry and get outside before she comes in so we don’t have to walk outside with her.”
I stood there so still, not breathing like I had just got punched in my weird gut. I was so confused and hurt as they continued talking about my weirdness and how not cool I was as they walked outside.
Weird.
They thought I was weird.
In that moment the tiny librarian in my brain stepped out from behind her little desk, walked over to the tiny bookshelves, peeked over her glasses at the labels on the books, and sorted through the W’s til she found “Weird”. Took it out of its uncategorized section and carefully placed it in the “Bad” section, with some other choice words such as “messy” and “imperfect”.
And that was that. Weird was officially a word I hated from then on.
From that moment on I became really sensitive to my “weirdness”. My “friends” would talk in the hallways between classes and slowly turn their backs to me til eventually I was pushed out of their cool circle like a little dweeb goat trying to eat from the same trough as all of the big strong goats. I didn’t fit in and I didn’t really know how to be cool enough again to be allowed into that circle. So I eventually left it and went and hung out with some friends who accepted me for just who I was. From then on I didn’t know how to react around the “cool” people, so I just became quiet and stopped talking to them. This carried over into high school and oh what fun it was to act like a mysteriously shy girl daily to everyone I didn’t know.
Even through my years of soccer I learned to just shut myself up and beat myself up constantly for not being good enough or cool enough like everyone else on my team. Even my coach obviously thought I was weird and imperfect, so that was more proof of my worthlessness to me- I just didn’t fit in anywhere.
I taught myself to see everyone around me as an enemy “Everyone obviously must think I’m weird so I better not become close with them unless they are weird like me.” It was so dumb! I spent so much time and energy worrying about what people thought of me.
Near the end of high school I met a boy who was weird too, and the best part was he didn’t care at all about what anyone thought of him. It was strange to me that he could do that and I respected and loved him for it. And honestly it taught me to take my wall down for a bit. He helped me learn to not care either and embrace my weirdness. The first time we hung out we packed wheelchairs into my trunk and wheeled around in Walmart for no reason at all but just to laugh. We would go to midnight showings of movies dressed in graduation robes with sticks we had foraged from some stranger’s back yard and whittled into wands. Or go on walks and collect literally hundreds of snails from the sidewalk and put them in baskets we had found. Everything we did was so “weird” but so much fun, it was a breath of fresh air! It was all so new for me that I learned to tune the rest of the world out, it was ok for me to be weird for once and he accepted me for it.
Not long after I met another boy who was completely different than the first. He was “cool”. He was handsome, funny and smooth with his words- he always knew just what to say. Not to mention it seemed like all of the girls wanted to date him. He allowed me to be weird, and he was weird too- but he was always very guarded. He cared a whole bunch about what people thought of him, and he had some very strong opinions about many other people as well. I understood it though, I understood the walls that he put up because I had them too. I sympathized with him and learned to feel how he felt- he felt not accepted in a different way than I had growing up. It was different, but at the same time eerily similar. And it caused an un-ease in him that hurt him and kept him always on the defense.
When he proposed to me the diamond on my ring was tilted at a 45 degree angle. We sat there on the old train platform where he had just proposed and he gently held my left hand up into the light “You notice how the diamond is tilted? I asked them to make it that way on purpose. I didn’t want it straight because that wouldn’t make sense. You are “off” too Codi, just like the diamond, you are not normal. You are tilted, you are not the same as everyone else, so I wanted your ring to show that.”
Weird.
He thought I was weird.
It was kind and thoughtful of him, he liked that about me, but he saw me as vastly different from even himself. It struck me that he saw me as “off” too just like everyone else did. Which was ok but just resonated in a strange lonely part of my heart.
Obviously these years were some that taught me the very most. I went through a rollercoaster of emotions- I would feel extreme highs of importance when I was praised and showered with songs, tears and romantic gestures. And other times I went through the lowest lows. Times when I would feel so hopeless, misunderstood, unimportant and weird that I would cry silent heaving sobs into my pillow in the middle of the night- while my husband would sleep peacefully on the other side of the bed.
My “weirdness” grew into a monster for these years. I always felt it lingering, every decision I made, every person I talked to, it would creep up and I’d have to fight it back so I could act normal. But I never was. Whatever I did wasn’t good enough and wasn’t accepted. So I learned to shut down just how I had in Jr High school. I became quiet and accepted the fact I wasn’t going to be heard, so I needed to just blend in and let my husband take control (since obviously I was too weird and dumb to make decisions myself- and I believed that my past backed up that belief about myself)
We all know how that story ends so I’ll save you most of the details.
But my weirdness still wouldn’t leave me alone, even through my divorce I would hear from complete strangers that my in-laws and husband’s friends were saying I was “crazy” and “bipolar” or a few other words which to me just screamed: UNIMPORTANT, FAILURE, NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
WEIRD.
They thought I was weird.
And just like that they pushed me out of their lives, out of the cool circle like I never existed. And I had to pretend I didn’t miss them either, because cool people don’t do that.
Fast forward to the next boy I met, unlike #1 or #2 in so many ways.
Jason was Jason. It never occurred to me when we met that he was weird or that a word like that even existed any more. What I had once viewed as weird just looked flawless and comfortable when I looked at Jason. He didn’t care what people thought of him, but he thought the world of quite literally everyone around him. He would laugh at anything he thought was funny, and he would talk to anyone no matter who they were or what others thought of them. He would act however he wanted and do anything that made him or others happy, as long as it was positive. I could see in his huge group of fun, weird, amazing friends and wonderful, accepting, fun family that he was doing something right- because why else would he be surrounded by so so much support and positivity? He literally took “weird” right out of my mind and melted it back down to what it meant to me when I was a kid. Which was just.. different. And Jason was and is different, and honestly I don’t know one person who doesn’t love him for it, not one!
He helped me see that different is not a bad thing, it’s actually a great thing.
One day we were driving and I felt so down because one of my good friends had just turned me down to go on a group date with us. Her words were “My husband thinks you’re weird and that date nights you put on are just weird, so we probably aren’t going to come, sorry.”
Jason looked at me and said “Code, what a compliment. Don’t see being “weird” as a bad thing, it means you’re different. And different people make life more fun and bright for everyone else! You make people see the world in a different light and that is an amazing gift! I feel so proud every time someone calls me weird, because it’s a compliment. Don’t feel sad, they are the ones missing out on your amazing insight, ideas and fun!”
Sure, just weeks before I had put on an old person date night where I forced my friends to all wear old clothes from Goodwill while we shuffled and limped around all night wearing braces and took crutches and wheelchairs to Chuck-a-Rama. After dinner we played a nice game of bingo and one of the prizes was an adult diaper. But was this date night weird? No way! Maybe everyone else who doesn’t have date nights like this are the weird ones!
It’s taken me my whole life to accept myself for who I am and to not be offended or sad when people say I’m weird. And I can’t say how much I wish I had learned this lesson years ago. It would have saved me so much hurt and worry.
Since Jason has come into my life he has helped open my eyes to so much. He has really taught me that when you are your best and truest self, you are also your happiest self and good people and experiences will just come to you! It’s really like magic how this happens and I’ve loved experiencing life in this light and learning to embrace what makes me different. It’s amazing how many friends and just pure goodness have appeared in my life in the last couple of years. And I have enjoyed being able to get to know people genuinely without boundaries or cautiousness in how I’m going to appear or come off to them. The truth is people will open up and love you more if you learn to do this within yourself first. Sometimes this takes a lot of life experience, or just someone to come in and show you the ropes in a kind way.
So be weird, be kind, be genuine and be you. I’m here to tell you it’s not worth the pain and the sadness to worry what everyone thinks of you. Worry about fixing yourself first if you’re broken, because when you are healthy emotionally then the people around you will feel it and you will be able to do more good than before and spread so much more sunshine!
One night Jason and I were at home, we were in our underwear hugging each other as tight as we could while we held our breath to see who could squeeze an ugly laugh out of the other person first. I think I won. After that we brushed our teeth while we ugly danced in silence, read some of our book and the scriptures together, and then talked about life and laughed really hard at something that had happened that day. As I laid there with my head on his belly while he played with my hair I realized something. To Jason I was not “off”. I was not tilted or crooked or different to him. We were one, and as far as he could tell we were both on the exact same crazy angle. And if we were both tilted at the exact same strange angle then really we weren’t “off” at all.
This was probably a totally cheesy, dumb, and maybe repetitive post but it’s something that has really shaped my life. I hope I can help even one person see how they might be holding themselves back from such a happy life. It’s ok to care about the people you care about, it’s ok to feel, it’s ok to think of crazy ideas, and do bizarre things as long as they are good, uplifting and positive. Never be ashamed of those good parts of you no matter if some people think you’re weird or that you don’t fit in with their views of what is normal. It’s ok. And our differences are what make life worth living.
There are always going to be people out there who are craving your individuality and who might need your heart, your ideas, or your outlook on life to better their life in some way. So don’t let the fear of what anyone thinks of you put out your unique flame. In the past I never would have written or posted anything like this post in fear of it sounding weird. But what the heck, who cares?