If there’s one thing last weekend taught me, its that Bill Murray is an ungrateful complainer. I would give anything to relive Groundhog Day 2015 over and over again.

No diss to Punxsutawney, but my new found admiration for the holiday is unrelated to the weather predicting rodent or western Pennsylvania. Instead, it has everything to do with a life-giving visit from two college friends. I moved to New York City about a year a half ago, and it still seems unfair that I get to call the coolest place I’ve ever been, my home. To say I was excited to show my best friends my best place would be a gross understatement.

In summary: the inside jokes didn’t stop, the dance floor was demolished, and we spent more time laughing than speaking. When that wasn’t enough, we faked a wedding proposal as any savvy Lower Eastsider would, because ain’t nobody got time for waiting in lines or paying for drinks. This type of outrageous debauchery is commonplace with my crew, so I still wouldn’t say anything extraordinary transpired last weekend.

But, then again, I have a secret…something I’ve told no one until now.

I met someone last weekend. The crazy part is that I’ve known of and dreamt about this person my entire life. They’ve always been around, but I’ve never felt brave or worthy enough to formally invite them into my life. Then, as a result of last weekend, it all changed. Fifteen years of unsent letters and unsaid rehearsed conversations were finally liberated.

If this sounds a little confusing, you’re up to speed, so hang tight. I want to tell you what happened to me on Groundhog Day Weekend 2015, and why it should matter to you. I’m not a wizard or a guru or even an exceptionally lucky person, but I’ll be as bold as to say that by the end of this post, you’ll know with certainty who “your person” is and what’s required to finally engage with them as I did. So, without further adieu…

The Wolf Pack

I’m a Colorado cowboy-town kid, so to begin, I’m going to equate my social experience as a teen with of a herd of wild horses.

For those of you without the experience to contextualize this analogy, let me explain. Wild horses, or Mustangs as they are called in the U.S., basically roam free in the expands of some western states. Then annually they are wrangled up by the Bureau of Land Management and forced together into big herds, precisely as Hollywood depicts it. The horses that are contained may either be sold for domestication and breeding or released back into the wild.

Growing up, I went to school with the same 25 people K-12. While I came to adore a huge majority of my classmates and still do today, the relationships were conceived out of limited availability. There were only about 10-15 girls my age in my town, so of course we were forced together, just like the horses. It was in college that I found my first wolf pack.

I’ll give due credit to the institutional structures which initially introduced us, but more important to this story are the reasons our pack successfully weathered four years of what I call “the college condition” — highest highs and lowest lows.

Let the Freak Flag Fly

Weird is a word I’ve heard a lot. In high school it was: “You don’t drink? That’s weird,” and, “You’ve never had a boyfriend? That’s weirder.”

This sucked. Because I did want a boyfriend and I was curious about alcohol and parties, but when it came down to it, what I desired most was to be a varsity starter and go to the college of my choice. When my compromise was labeled “weird,” I summoned faith that the method to my madness was well-founded, and sure enough, my gamble paid off.

I vividly remember the first time I was called “weird” in college. The culprit: Alli, a foundational wolfpack member who would quickly also become my best girl. It was the Friday after the first full week of classes, and I was dreading having to face the classic college freshman dilemma: “So, where are we going out tonight?” Somehow I managed to evade this inquiry with plenty of fake phone conversations and coughing attacks. As the bump and grind pre-funk anthems faded out, I decided to go take a shower, because being clean and lame was better than just being lame.

That’s when I passed Alli’s door and noticed she was neither drunk nor, it seemed, trying to get that way. In an adorably awkward interaction, we bonded. I’ve never felt so instantly comfortable around anyone. This inevitably resulted in a characteristic display of hilarious immaturity on my end, with an equally outrageous response on hers. “You’re so weird,” she told me. To which I replied, “So are you.” The rest is history.

Perfect isn’t Perfect

I quickly surrounded myself with a stone-cold pack of weirdos. “Weird” became my favorite compliment, not because it was always a positive remark, but it meant I was different. I find people who are “weird” to often be exceptional thinkers. A large part of oddity is simply a varied perspective. Humor is confusing because it’s really difficult to determine why certain words, sounds, or cadence combinations inspire laughter. However, undeniably, humor is rooted in weirdness. Hence why I’ve never experienced as much joviality as I did living for two years with the wolf pack, whose membership included the seven weirdest girls I know. Despite finding a niche teeming with camaraderie, the wolf pack wasn’t without flaws.

It took graduation and the forced abandonment of our den at 1011 E. Sinto Avenue, to realize that a life defined by hangovers without consequence, guaranteed companionship, and weirdness unjudged, was not a timeless reality.  The levels of comfort we’d developed were, in retrospect, extremely exclusive and unwelcoming to anyone who couldn’t “get on our level.”

Geography became a factor. Once vibrant late night “kitchen bitchin” sessions were reduced to group texts, inebriated Facetime conversations, and disgusting SnapChat selfies. Four or five months out, nothing about the wolfpack had changed, but everything about each of us individually had. It became obvious that our heavy reliance on the group identity in college, now left each of us feeling underdressed on our own.

A Table for One

So began the post-grad quest: a find the confidence to sit at a table for one. A year and half post-grad, I’d become obsessed with NYC and my new band of lovable freaks. Nothing in my life was worth complaining about. Still, as I anticipated the arrival of my wolf pack visitors, I couldn’t suppress the faint voice that worried: “What if they don’t love it?” Enter: Groundhog Day Weekend 2015.

Obviously my anxiety was ill-founded, because as described above, we had the time of our lives. And as I know you’ve been dying to hear, I met my person. Spoiler alert: that person was me…but to be fair, me as I’d never known myself before.

The juxtaposition of my wolf pack identity parallel to my life in New York put me in a pickle between the two bases. With no other option, I summoned the best parts of myself from each side, thereby acting to satisfy both. The result was an overwhelming sentiment of unapologetic self-awareness. When the two worlds collided it finally clicked: the only way to be a fully contributing member of any group of people, was to epitomize wholehearted authenticity and not worry about the rest.

So Simple it Hurts

There’s a quote I’ve coveted for years, but before Groundhog Day 2015 had never successfully embodied:

If you want something you’ve never had, you’ve got to do something you’ve never done.

For me, it was working up the courage to meet and embrace the person I knew I was destined to be all along. In return, I’ve never felt more revolutionary. But don’t take my word for it. Instead, invite your authentic self out into the open today and report back tomorrow. I’ll be on the side of the fence with the greener grass. Meet you there.

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