"Hugs"

I did not come from a hugging family. That does not mean that I was not loved. Because I was. There are many ways of knowing and showing that you are loved. Hugging was simply not the method of choice in our family ... nor my parent's families. That is just the way it was.

I never thought of it as a child, but it was when I was recently posing for pictures with my first-best-friends-in-my-life that I realized that my friends and I were both from the same detached I-can-be-your-best-friend-without-hugging-you school.

It seems that whenever I find myself posing for a photo with friends or family these days, there is a arm casually draped around a waist or a shoulder. When I stood with my best friends from my childhood, each one of us adopted the must-see-daylight-between-us rule. I would not have realized this, had we not been told to stand closer together ... and I draped my arm around my friend. I remembered in that instant that we had never been friends-that-touched-or-hugged.

Then came boys. Hugging was allowed. To hug and be hugged felt very, very good. To this day, one of my most favorite things to do is snuggle (I think ... it's been a very long, long time since my last contact with the male species). No words are necessary when you are hugging someone.

That was it. Family & friends = no touching. Boys = hugging.

Enter my first ever 'hugging friend'. She hugged everyone. She was a great lover of life. She quite literally reached out and embraced it. She told me of friends that she had that were really good huggers. I was not one of them. "You are like hugging a board". I was stiff, unyielding, unresponsive and ungiving. Yup. A board perfectly described my hugability factor (and yes, I am making up a new vocabulary as I go along here).

Then there were my in-laws. They were a family of huggers. They were very demonstrative and quite possibly it was that (literal) reaching out and touching someone, that was part of the attraction to my husband. Yet when it came to his family, I could hear my friend's words taunt me. I was like a board.

It took a decade or so, but eventually I moved out and away from that world. I moved onward and created a life in a brand new city.

It takes a while to formulate strong friendships. I now have a very strong and vital circle of friends in my life. Several of them are of the detached I-can-be-your-friend-without-hugging mentality. But I have another bunch of friends that hug.

I've adapted to the hugging thing. I don't cringe. I try to create a non-board-like demeanor. I do attempt to return the hug. But I still don't initiate hugs - it simply doesn't dawn on me.

My family is turning into a hugging family. It's a tiny bit weird because I'm still on the outside, looking in most of the time. Oh, I return hugs. But I never think to give them. I confessed this to my sister and she said that it is something that she has to do consciously. Oh ... that's the secret.

Yet I still continue to forget. I went through a phase where I realized (a day later) that I should have inserted a hug 'there'. Then forgot about that phase and continued to stand by and receive hugs as necessary.

It was when I was stringing together some tough words to a good friend this morning, that I realized the power of a hug. Sometimes ... there are no words. That is when a touch of a hand, a meaningful exchange of a glance or a hug communicates more than words could ever say.

I get it. When words don't cut it ... 'insert-hug-there'.

This explains why I write so much.