✮ Penguin Bombs and Finding Family ✮

You know that moment when you meet someone special, and you know that they will be part of your life forever? When they take you out and say those special words... "Hey... do you like sexy demons?" ... And you know nothing will ever be the same...

This is the meet-cute between Konekochu and Yue. In real life, the two of us are neighbours with my daughter and her son being good friends. But we both struggle with the same affliction: being introverts with social anxiety. It wasn't until years later that we became good friends. She took a brave destined step by reaching out to someone she saw struggling.

Prior to this friendship starting, I had taken on the biggest project of my life: leading a revolution in our non-profit cooperative housing community, dismantling a dictatorship oligarchy of a board of directors, and leading the community into a new age. The "Yue as a revolutionary/president" chapter is for a different blog post, but during that time I was unfortunately under attack. Someone I had thought a friend and ally had started to slander me, trying to turn my neighbours and community against me.

Unfortunately, it was really effective, as this "Judas'" abuse was triggering from what I had dealt with in the past. There was a particularly rough community meeting, in which Judas verbally attacked myself and the other directors, where I was very much not okay. After, as we were packing up and I was zoned out into a storm of depression, Konekochu approached me and said "you need to go get a drink, let's go." and we went to a nearby pub.

Imagine, two socially awkward people sitting in a pub, sipping Shirley Temples, playing a game about unstable unicorns. Right from that first meeting, we got along so well that I knew we would be good friends. She introduced me to her world - Twitch, Obey Me, Luminara... and I fell head over heels in love with that world. But mostly, I fell in love with her and her family.

See, Konekochu is someone I can read like the back of my hand. It's not to say she is simple - actually, she is very complicated. But the two of us share so many similarities - mental health and trauma in our formative years. We also both love to be crazy otakus and simps, to laugh and make silly content... We see and hear each other on a level deeper than any friendship I've had before. And her family - though it can be weird or crazy at times, is the sweetest, most caring family. Her husband and (now) five children have become so important to me, I think of them as my own family. My kids think of them as their siblings. We have 2 units in this tiny community, but really, we have become one big family.

And Konekochu?

She is like the other half of my soul. She is wild, caring, unpredictable, and fun. She is the type of person who will randomly "penguin bomb" (she hid 25 tiny penguins throughout my house, see the slideshow below!) my home in a fun easter-like madness, with a prize meant to help me with my creative endeavours (while featuring my fine merman love). We are stuck together, for the rest of our lives, and I wouldn't have it any other way.