How many times...?

I sit in my office and think to myself "How many times..."

How many times have we stood in the hall yacking, cackling, cracking jokes at each others expense, dancing a little dance as others walk by, their expressions not even slightly surprised or even disapproving? They've come to accept our loitering and often did it with a smile.

Those trips to the shops a chattering bunch of females with one man thrown in the mix. The air filled with laughter, internal jokes being flung at the speed of light.

There were the numerous afternoon coffee breaks where the feel of the air outside relieved us of just a bit of stress, just a bit of anxiety, just a bit of the overwhelming sense of panic.

The gripe sessions where one of us would walk into anothers office, plop down, bitch up a storm until they felt purged and then leave?

How many occassions did we bring beers down to our offices Friday evenings to drink them with each other instead of socializing with the zombies on the 13th floor or how many times did we break into dance when a particularily good song would suddenly fill the room and the feet simply worked on its own?

How many times did we see the bootie dance, heard threats upon each other lives, dodged flying objects for smartass comments or been hugged when sadness has us in tears?

How many times did we talk each other off the edge, find a reason to stop by for nothing in particular, or stick our heads in to see if the other needed to go 'potty'?

How many times did we simply smile knowingly because at one point words weren't necessary and just how many times did we speak of our lives on first named basis?

I miss all those numerous mornings when breakfast was all that we could think of and would gather together the flock (even if it were one or two of us) and I miss even those loans given to each other without a seconds thought when one discovered they did not have enough money to pay for lunch.

I miss being able to walk into the familiarity of the mornings, the afternoons and the evenings spent with people who were as well known to me as my own family.

I miss you guys something terrible at times. I think and smile and my heart sighs and I almost feel as if I would give anything to go back to how it was, that I'm not so removed from you. But then I hear your voices, your assurances that I haven't moved far, that I'm as close to you today as I was to you then. I hear those oh-so-well-known-to-me-voices that bring instant comfort and then I thank my Creator for having brought you all into my life in the first place.