Alias No. 1: The Girl That Knew No Strangers

I grew up in a small town that exists about twenty years in the past. When I was little, you didn't have to lock the doors and we were always outside. It was small enough that we knew almost everyone there. At times, I'd disappear and my parents would find me sitting on my neighbor's couch a few hours later watching cartoons while they were asleep on the couches.

When I was a kid, I didn't know there were bad things in the world. To me, everything that was bad could be fixed with the power of love or friendship whether it was a cut, scrape, sadness, anything. I knew no strangers. I'd go up to anyone at any time and talk to them like I'd known them forever. I could (and probably tried to at some point) make a fence post talk and I always wanted to make people smile, especially if they were having a bad day. I could tell that people always had a story to tell and I was fascinated by those stories.  

The judge of the town lived across from me for most of my childhood. He and his wife were growing old and frail so they had someone come in and do their yard work for them. One of my favorite things to do when I was outside was listen to him talk and help him with what I could do. Usually that was just light work since I was still a little girl. We also had family friends that brought produce to the farmer's market that used to occur at the head of my neighborhood and my parents occasionally let me drive my little Barbie Jeep to the head of the road and trade a few bottles of water and some crackers for a watermelon, a cantaloupe, and whatever other fresh produce they had. I didn't really know them, but I knew no strangers. Strangers were simply friends I hadn't met yet.

I sometimes wonder where I got that sense of knowing no strangers came from. At times, I think it's because I couldn't see for the first two years of my life and would walk up to anyone roughly the same general structure as my parents and call them "mommy" and "daddy." I didn't know they weren't my parents. I just couldn't see.    

When I started school, I always walked up to the most lonely person in the room and introduced myself. To me, it was the best way to make friends. Even as a five year old, I wanted everyone to feel included. At that point in time, I didn't realize that people were different (gender, race, sexuality, age, etc. were all above my head apparently). I remember becoming really close with the students in the Special Education classes because no one else wanted to be their friend and I thought they looked lonely. In a lot of ways, I was also an outcast because I'd started school over a year late because of reasons that I'd rather not discuss. At that point, I didn't care about fitting in. I just wanted to make people happy. 

There are some things I don't really like that I did as a kid, but I think that Baby Unicorn was onto something when she followed the motto that "strangers are just friends that I haven't met yet." I lost that part of me for a while, but it's one of the things I've found myself coming back to as I'm recovering and making a new alias for myself. I'd forgotten how great it felt to make someone smile until I listened to a friend making the person working the drive through window laugh every time he drove through somewhere and found myself doing it again over time. I've always been taught to love my neighbor and despite being told otherwise, everyone is my neighbor and I'm going to find a way to love everyone because strangers really are just friends you haven't met yet. If you need proof, ask the last two friends I've made via Tinder about it.