I met this family the other day that was so weird! First off the father, he was balding but none of his kids are! Was he really even their father? His adult son was even a good 5 inches taller than him and his wife! As we were talking his son said something and then started laughing. Not like a real laugh but this weird "ha ha ha" as he was looking at the rest of his family for confirmation which was only responded to by his father who says "That's about as bad as mine" and then he starts laughing too! It wasn't funny, I didn't get it! Then his sister chimes in with this story. The thing is that as she begins to tell it, it's in this monologue style like it was previously written even though it wasn't. It was hilarious, but yet such a dramatic representation which is probably part of why it was so funny. The mother then comes out of the blue with some quick fact about a family friend who just found out that they had cancer. Wow, what a mood crusher! That was unexpected. We were just all laughing, not at the son's joke, but at the daughter's story and then the laughing just died. Who does that? Then the other daughter, the earlier daughter's twin, who looks nothing like the other, speaks to the mother with concern and questions that everyone responds to in complete sincerity as though they weren't just laughing hysterically. Then the father speaks up once again explaining in gruesome detail the last doctor's appointment that he had and instead of seeing this a obscenely weird, one of the twins begins asking a series of medical questions like some sort of medical nerd. I assume that she must be a nurse or a doctor, but she's not!
This family is so weird!
This is my family! My family is so weird!
In the eighties, Tom Cruise was someone that I looked up to. He was such a cool guy in Top Gun and always seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, could make solid decisions and was quite rational. However today you can Google "Tom Cruise Crazy" and you get so many articles about how Tom has gone crazy, nuts and just plain weird!
When someone believes, acts or lives differently than we do, we lump them in a box of weird, odd and crazy.
I have this saying that heard once yet I can't remember from who, that I tell myself (and sometimes others) when ever I meet someone and find out that they are just plain nuts in one way or another, "Everybody's normal until you meet them!" You see, even I can't escape the reality that some people could see me as someone they look up to until they really meet me and find out that I am a few french fries short of a full order!
My kids like to tell me how weird I am and when they do, I respond, "That's what makes me so special!" No one else is like me, I am my own person and that's what makes me weird and amazing!
We tend to surround ourselves with the people that are the same kind of weird as us and then we tell ourselves, "I have finally found someone normal!" In many ways that can be very therapeutic and helpful, but if that is all that we let into our lives, we can end up very bland and close-minded. It can honestly get quite lonely if you can't end up finding those who meet those guidelines for you.
Whenever I see someone and think that their life, beliefs and views are crazy, weird and out-of-the-box I actually tend to spend more time with them. I have so many questions to ask and they make me incredibly curious. Even if I don't believe the same way that they do after my questioning, I normally find out that they are the way that they are for a reason. They have had life experiences, medical conditions or a biology that makes them the way that they are and I find that so fascinating! To be honest, somebody's differences from me are what draws me the closest to them. That's why my family is so fun to be around, because we are so different and weird that I just can't get enough of them!
If you find that your life is pretty normal and the people around you all make sense, then you haven't asked enough questions of them or haven't opened up about who you really are. Find others who are so different than you and dig a little deeper, I bet you will find some of your best and most lasting friendships.
You are weird! Embrace it and love the things that make you different from others!
Surround yourself with weird and gain a whole new understanding of this world!
