brokenpurplecrayon

tonight i got to take a break from my world and go spend a couple of hours in someone else’s. specifically, sweetie’s world. twice a year, i tag along for her agency’s sit down dinners. there’s the obligatory annual agency christmas party where everyone brings their significant others (last year’s was quite fun as the head doctor got totally sloshed and became quite the emcee) and then there’s the annual social work appreciation dinner. being a social worker myself, albeit in a different field and agency, i get an invite to the social work dinner.

this year, the topic was “compassion fatigue” and it was actually pretty interesting. the speaker wanted us to know the difference between burnout and compassion fatigue. but this post isn’t about the topic. it’s about the fact that for a few hours, i got to forget all the garbage that has been floating around in my head. i wasn’t worried about my job, my agency, the layoffs, the dramas…. i wasn’t thinking about things i needed to accomplish or what was coming up next on my calendar. i didn’t have to think about my poor termite infested wood house and all the cost and hassle facing us in repairs. money woes didn’t flicker on my mental radar. instead, i got to sit with an entire table filled with hospice social workers (with a nurse & marketing person thrown in for good measure) and laugh and eat and generally be a goof for a couple of hours.

in the car, on the way home, as i smiled out the window in a half dazed food coma, i realized that for as much as i hadn’t wanted to dress up and go to what could have been a very boring and excruciating event (which was a reality 2 years ago when the cemetery owner was yelling at us about elephants – and no, i can’t explain further) …. i really needed the break from my own personal reality. i needed to step outside my box of life and be free – even if only for a couple of hours.

i came home, took the dogs out, and crawled promptly into bed. of course, it’s 3am and i’m awake now, but strangely, i feel much more rested than i did for the majority of this week.

.:{brokenpurplecrayon}:.