grateful | for an extra hug

Today, I am grateful that I find it difficult to step outside my comfort zone. See, there's a blogging conference on at the moment. In Melbourne. And I was going to buy a ticket when they were released 8 months ago, but I stopped myself with silly words about how it's "not my scene", "you won't know anyone", "you have nothing to share", etc.

The blogasphere has been all a-twitter with news and status updates, and posts from attendees, and posts from un-attendees.

But if I had gone to the conference, I would have missed this girl wearing her hat in her first Easter bonnet parade at big school. In fact, she thought I had missed it. She walked around the school hall with a sad face because she couldn't see me, tucked away at the back.

I moved to a better spot for her to see me, and she smiled. Then we waalked back to her classroom, and I asked her if she had been sad that she couldn't see me, and she promptly burst into tears (and so did I! Her teacher has seen me cry more times than any other teacher!) Her teacher took her aside, calmed her down, and then we took photos, hugged, and left her to eat Easter eggs morning tea.

If I had gone to the conference, I wouldn't have had that extra hug with my girl.