I Hated Craft Time
I started a scrapbook during COVID. I figured I could pass quiet days with a craft with boxes of pictures and a phone full of selfies and everything else that I felt like capturing, plus A LOT of time. Whenever I sit down to my scrapbook, I remember the summer at camp or a sort of VBS activity. I didn’t have a lot of friends, and I missed hanging out at home with my cat and toys. It was hard to fit in. I didn’t look like the other kids because my family didn’t have a lot of money, and sometimes other kids made fun of my beat-up old clothes. It was a real struggle to be enthusiastic about hanging around with a bunch of strangers. Plus, I hated craft time.
When we sat down at the table on the second day, there was a pile of popsicle sticks, glue and some well-worn cakes of paint. With an excessive amount of enthusiasm, the teacher explained that we were going to build our dream treehouse. First, where was this tree? Don’t you need a tree?! We never had the money to build a “treehouse,” so this craft just made me feel worse. PLUS, I had to sit with all these strange kids who probably didn’t like me. While grumbling and pushing one stick around with another, a nicely dressed girl sat down beside me. She quietly introduced herself and asked if she could sit by me. In my moodiness, I muttered “sure” and set to work, laying out the sticks to make my first wall. Something caught the corner of my eye. The tiny voice that had said hello was intently watching me, copying my every move. For my little shadow, I was her support and unlikely teacher.
She didn’t have a lot of friends, having grown up with a lot of illnesses. She was nervous about her first time away from home but saw me, perhaps my feelings similar to hers. We worked together and made a treehouse together, two stories, with rainbows and flowers smeared on the outside walls.
When I feel down about myself or feel isolated and lonely, I take out my scrapbook, all those things glued together in this coil-bound house. Inside my house are pictures of messy children, messier grandchildren and hundreds of “strangers” I have met throughout my life. One day, when things felt really hopeless last year, I took out a piece of paper and drew, I think almost perfectly, the little house me and my little friend built. I have stuck it in my scrapbook, right inside the cover, to remind me that sometimes the best way to heal is to get involved and simply try. It reminds me that everyone has their own story and struggles and that I can help, which brings me joy.
Now, I like to pull out that scrapbook to help soothe my soul. The pages remind me that craft time is sometimes all the heart needs.
Anonymous submission
*image from GUC Playschool, a place where imagination soars!
