hands

when i was a little kid, i was a major daddy's girl. i followed him everywhere, and i did everything he did. tuesday afternoons were our movie dates, friday afternoons were spent bowling with him, saturday and sunday afternoons were spent at the gym playing basketball, and every night there was a basketball game i was sitting on the couch next to him. i sat on the kitchen counter and watched and sometimes helped him make dinner. i begged for all his hand-me-downs (even though none of them fit me -___-) and i thought all his old hoarded trinkets were the coolest things i had ever seen. as i've grown older, we've grown apart, and we've had many arguments and disagreements over the years. i'm definitely much, much closer to my mom now, but she says she can still see so much of him in me -- his temper, his stubbornness, his aggressiveness.

i don't know when my dad stopped being my hero because i thought he was the coolest person on the planet, but somewhere along the way, my dad became my hero because he is the most giving man in my life. he has so much love and so much heart, and he sacrifices and puts up with so much to make sure that my family is never left wanting anything. before i forgot how to talk to him, i used to touch and look at his hands and remark at how calloused and rough and chapped they were -- he has special lotion to help with the painful chapping -- and i'd ask why mine weren't like that, or if i had to worry that i would one day have to deal with that too (because i have his hairline, and let's just say... yikes). he would smile and tell me that i wouldn't understand what that felt like because i had never really worked a day in my life. at that point, i had had a few jobs, a few internships, so i didn't know what he meant.

now, i work with my hands in a manual labor job. they are cut and dry and scraped and so, so chapped.  my fingers are cut and bruised. i feel like no amount of lotion i apply has offered any relief, and i don't see the chapping going away. it feels especially painful in this cold weather, and i noticed tonight that i was bleeding onto my notebook from the cuts and chapping on my right hand. it's the littlest things. washing the dishes hurts, and taking my hand out of my coat pocket hurts. writing hurts because i have to drag my hand across the paper, and my hands get so stiff.

it makes me think about my dad, and how much his hands go through in a day at work. and he comes home to make dinner. he comes home and holds my sister's hand on our nightly walks. he comes home and gives my mom a hug. and i can't think about how much his hands must hurt doing all those tender things, and i think about all the moms and dads like my mom and my dad, who work to give their children everything, whose hands can tell you stories about struggle and sacrifice, but also so much love. i want so badly to do good and do right for them. at a time when i'm feeling extremely beat down and almost depressed, i'm finding so much energy and motivation lately -- especially in this past week -- to keep chugging along. just so fired up right now.