a very mental health-y valentine's day

I just had what will surely go down in personal history as my most memorable Valentine's Day ever, after that time in early grade school when we all made decorative valentine receptacles out of shoe boxes and went around putting valentines in everyone's box but somehow my box got pushed off to the side and so no one saw mine and I didn't get any valentines.

But I'm over it.

Anyway, at 10 a.m., a dance party commenced at the community mental health agency where I'm doing my public health nursing rotation. A DJ played club music over impressively loud speakers, many clients, including deaf ones, displayed some rather skilled dance moves, and many more watched from folding chairs on the sidelines. One little 50-something man in a scarf and shades kept doing breakdance-y splits, and even though it took him a solid minute to get his aging joints off the floor, he was beaming the whole time.

We nursing students provided the clients with sugar-free Kool-aid (many psych meds cause diabetes, you know!) and materials with which to make valentines.




Some were kind of confusing.



Some were just, well, the best.



And some were just plain sweet.



One guy just wrote his name on his.

I can't say I'd be terribly upset if this holiday just disappeared altogether, but even this old grinch's heart grew a few sizes today.