Except that now I’d achieved it, normal suddenly didn’t sound so desirable. Weird was the new normal and, of course, I hadn’t gotten the memo. I still wasn’t fitting in. I still had no friends. Maybe I just didn’t know how. Certainly I’d had no practice. Maybe sedulously making sure that no one really knew me was an impediment to friendship. Maybe all those people coming in and out of my room were friends and I just hadn’t realized it, because I’d been expecting more. Maybe friendship was not as big a deal as I’d thought and I actually had lots of friends.
