Awkward Hugger

A little secret, if you don't know me in real life, is that I am an incredibly awkward hugger.  I usually love hugs from people, but you will almost NEVER find me initiating a hug.  It is way out of my comfort zone.

The reason I say I usually love hugs, is because of what happened in college.  It was the first time I realized I wasn't a "hugger."  Lauren  always greeted me with an 8:00am hug.  I tolerated the hugs for a while, but soon I found myself annoyed, Lauren got the drift, and I found the courage to say I didn't really want a hug first thing in the morning.  We compromised by creating "free hug" time after 11:00 am. 

About five years later, my hugging aversion surfaced again, but this time, the tables had kind of turned.  I found myself missing a hug.   Jess's husband, Isaac, passed away, and although we spent the whole evening together, never once did I hug her.  Maybe it was the fact that if we hugged we knew we would have both lost it, but I think it had more to do with the fact that neither one of us are inclined to hugging, so it just didn't happen.

Not hugging Jess on the day her husband died has stuck with me.  I know she's not holding it against me or anything, but I feel like it was a pretty pathetic move on my part.

But I'm turning over a new leaf.  I decided I want to be quicker with an embrace, but it's so out of my comfort zone! Since we changed churches and moved counties, I feel like I have a "fresh start" and I'm trying to reinvent myself as a hugger.  

It is definitely stretching me.  I'm doing pretty good with hello and goodbye hugs, especially when it comes to people I don't get to see as often anymore (like Jess, ironically).

But two weeks ago, I did something really really awkward.  More awkward than a non-hugger trying to initiate the embraces.

I met my friend D for coffee.  I knew she was pregnant, but when she arrived and I saw how round and adorable her belly was, I instinctively patted it (because all pregant women LOVE that, right?).  Unfortunately for D, next came a hug and somehow in the hug process, I forgot to move my hand away from her belly, and as we embraced, suddenly I realized my hand had gone from belly to lower back, and was in between her shirt and coat.

 And suddenly, instead of a "hey, good to see you" kind of hug, she got a "hey, this is way more inimate and personal than I meant it to be" kind of hug.

The worst part is, the next week, I ran into ANOTHER pregnant friend and did the exact.same.thing.

{{Hanging my head in embarrassment.}}

The moral of the story is, if you're pregant, don't let me hug you.  Lauren, you should be grateful there is an ocean separating your pregnant self from my awkward self.