The World Needs a Hug

Ever have one of those days where you just feel uninspired?  Today was like that for me.  The thing is ... I know it won't last ... as least I hope it won't last.  This is the kind of day where I just feel like getting out my card making stuff and spreading it all out all over the kitchen table and just making a big mess with it.
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This morning I received an email from my old friend, Rose, who still lives in Anchorage.  She used to be a therapist/counselor but she escaped that life-sucking career and now she's buying/selling stuff.  I don't know what kind of stuff but I'll bet she's doing really well at it.  We used to do some garage saling back in the day and that woman could spot a bargain a block away!  She told me she is getting ready for a trip to France next month so she must be doing okay. We used to get together about 3 times a year for all-day crafting. We invited our favorite crafty friends from the mental health center where we worked and they'd bring their favorite stuff over to my house. We'd set up tables and literally craft for a solid 8 hours. They always brought food and so we could snack all day and just create.  We came up with some of the most awesome ideas during those "sessions".  My friend did talk therapy but her real specialty was art therapy.  I don't think she was analyzing us while we crafted but now that I think about  it .. maybe she was! (laughing out loud to myself)  Nah ... she was too busy creating.  I remember one time we were crafting right before Valentine's Day and we had this stamp that was of a water faucet and she came up with this idea of having little hearts coming out of the faucet instead of water drops.  I wonder what a shrink would make of that?

It was awesome to hear from her today.  It's been over 10 years now since I moved away from Alaska and even longer since I saw her in person.  She was a really good friend at that time in my life and I miss those fun friendships I had when I worked at the mental health center. There was a group of woman there who really cared about each other and we had a great team of people providing the best community mental health care . It's the first place I had ever worked where people hugged each other on a regular basis.  When I left that employment I went to work for the state and the first time I hugged a co-worker afterwards I felt like the biggest weirdo ever!  My co-worker got all stiff and gave me the strangest look so, of course, that never happened again.  I didn't work in a friendly place again until hospice.  Now there's a bunch of huggers for ya!  I miss that.

I'm really glad I started blogging because it's helped bring up some of those old memories and it's provided a place for me to record them.