There’s a lot that I like about this drawing. From the weird proportions of the eyes and mouth down to the alien-esque creatures that I really can’t explain.
What I see in this image, though, is some kind of friendship – as unlikely as it may be. For starters, how do they communicate? What are those blobs anyways?
Thoughts for another day…
Something I appreciate about children is their ability to make a friend fast. Do you remember being a kid and having a new best friend every school year? Or maybe even every month? Maybe, now, as a parent you’re having a tough time keeping up with the fast pace of friend turnover. It’s pretty amazing, truly.
On the other hand, though, something that is difficult to appreciate about those school years is the required conformity. Before you’re even out of elementary school, you learn the value of blending in with everyone else and the different kids… well, they get left out, picked on, left without friends. And, it’s made worse because kids that would otherwise be nice little humans join in and dump on the different kids, just to blend in.
I like to think I’ve always been good to people but I know it’s not true.
I’ve been on both sides of the situation, being made fun of as the weird kid and then making fun of the different kids myself. You would think that having been picked on, I would not have acted like that towards others… but that’s just how it was. It all seemed so harmless.
I, too, joined in on picking on the kids that didn’t quite fit in. The kids that were weaker than us. Like so many others, I used those kids to blend in with the larger crowd. To conform. To be like everyone else and I never thought anything of it.
Even doing that, you could still end up being the odd person out amongst a group of friends. I remember less about the specifics of those days but I recall the general feeling. It always felt like when I hung out with my best friends, one-on-one, we got on great. But, then, whenever a third person was involved – I was the odd person out. The butt of all the jokes. I was the different one in that group.
Instead of turning around and being a nice person, though, I was often just a jerk to the next person in line. I could have broken the cycle, but I didn’t. I just wanted to belong and be accepted. No matter what it took.
What I know now is that we don’t have to be the same to be friends. We don’t need to look the same or think the same way. We just need to have a mutual respect. We just need to be kind to each other and stand up for each other, even if it’s a hard thing to do.
We just have to be nice.
Art by JL 
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