How do you define “oogy?”

If the term has to be defined, I’d start with a feeling: Oogy is a feeling both familiar and strange. It twists in your gut along with fear of the unannounced, yet lilts with a tumble of silliness when pronounced.

For me, “oogy” was originally a term used in exclamation, a description of an amusing, guttural noise that escaped my husband’s mouth, or in reference to my own weird expressions I’d use in place of—you know—normal person speak, while I’m the most myself at home.

In that sense, “oogy” is safety, comfort, and reassurance in the truth that I am who I am most in the conditions—and company—I call home. As a person plagued with social anxiety that continues to ebb and flow throughout my life, it’s the best feeling in the world to truly be at ease, loose from the shoes shoved off at the front door.

The comfort of being oneself also exists in tandem with the discomfort of nonacceptance. To be acknowledged as “strange” and “weird” and sometimes “creepy”… aren’t those terms synonymous with being called “oogy”?

Reclaiming and rebranding the word “oogy” is my attempt at freedom. Doing so represents being true to myself, untethered by the names I’ve been called, free to speak and share the strangeness I embody, everything I naturally am, and all that makes us friends, even though we may have never met.