Day three - hands

Today's challenge is "hands". Or, in my case, "hand". I wanted this to be a self-portrait, but I gave up on trying to take a picture of both hands at once. So, here's a photo of the left one*. (The right one is pretty much the same, but with a perfect, half-circle shaped scar over the first knuckle.) 

I have a love-hate relationship with my hands. I am a very tactile person, so I am always trying to touch stuff. I love feeling shapes and textures and even temperatures. When we are out shopping, I have an innate need to touch or pick up everything, which I am sure annoys my fella. Not the touching or picking up part, but the fact that I have an epic, life-long case of the dropsies. And a tendency to try to hold more than I can handle. I suppose it's a bit of a metaphor for everything I do - I am always taking on too much, trying to keep things from hitting the floor, scrambling to pick up the pieces... gah! That could be a blog post in itself. 

Our hands are also our way of soothing, healing, stimulating, nurturing, and forming a connection. It's a proven fact that babies who do not receive enough human touch will fail to grow and thrive. I believe the same to be true for people of all ages. I once knew a single woman who had almost zero physical contact with other people in her day-to-day life. As soon as she became stressed, she would book an appointment to get her hair or her nails done. I think looking good was secondary; she just craved touch and once she had her weekly fix of it, she was back to good. I think we're all like that, to a degree, and when I am faced with a situation that needs to be fixed, my first thought is to reach out with my hands, either to offer touch, or to request it. Sometimes it's all you can do.

As for the "hate" that I feel towards my hands, it's really more of a frustration with the fact that they aren't as pretty as I would like them to be. Right now they are dry and cracking and hurt where the skin has split. They don't have the best circulation, so sometimes my fingertips turn white and go numb, and they are as far from graceful or elegant looking as can be. (Although, did you get a look at that middle finger? I can flip the bird like a champion.) If I had one wish to make to the beauty gods, it would probably be for better looking hands. 

*It's also a picture of my shoes, right before they were clipped into the pedals of my spin bike at 6:10am. Too bad the subject for today wasn't feet. Feet I can do.