Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Some posts need updating

I wrote this post four years ago. I think it's time it was updated. 


I can look at my hands again. Now, when I see them, I don't think of broken dreams and ruined sandcastles. I don't think of the things I let go.

Now, I see how I built myself a life far away from everything familiar. The opportunities I have grasped even though things were difficult. The home I set up and maintain, a space all mine. The new things I learn every day, the job I am learning to become better at. The meals I make for myself both simple and fancy. The support I offer to those most important to me. The freedom to sometimes indulge in the luxuries I always denied myself.

My hands remind me of how I still build sandcastles, but that they are meant to be washed away for bigger ones. That dreams are always changing and expanding, that they NEED to be destroyed sometimes when they turn into nightmares. 

The spaces between my fingers still remind me of my loneliness, but also of long walks in new cities where two bodies moved not as one, but together. They remind me of messages I type and letters I write; gifts I create and photographs I collect to nurture something that is beautiful, even if I might have to let it go one day.

When I look at my hands now, I see growth and strength. An independence tinged with loss, but fortified with acceptance. 

The veins on the back of my hand don't stick out any more because I don't have to hold on to something that was always running away from me.

I look at my hands everyday and love what they signify. They remind me that I am enough.