A Letter to the Hands That Have Held Too Much

Dear hands,

You are so strong. You have been through so much, and even in these moments of cracking and aching, you are just as real as you were before.

I was once told I could be a hand model, but that was long before I carried the things I carry now. There are scars on you that weren't there before because of the weight. Lifting weights that were way too heavy for me. Lifting the ones that weren't mine — the responsibilities, the boxes to the left, the ones I had to drag out of burning buildings as my world crumbled around me, trying to hold together the life I had built.

But these same hands grasped at ribbons that flew away into the wind. They played in the soil, planted a garden, birthed puppies, and twisted my hair into locks that flowed down my back. And they tried to retrieve what they could from a wet basement, sorting through pictures and old items lost to water damage, trying to find solace in losing things I'd carried since I was a child.

You carry weight from those around me in the present, from the past, and from lineages I'm still discovering. These hands have carpal tunnel early because of the braids I've twisted in the heads of many, and the meals I've cooked. I feel the same pains in my hands that my grandma had in hers. The arthritis. The same pains my dad has.

We reach out and give handshakes to people who have no idea what these hands hold. They feel a weak grip and think there is weakness in the soul, not realizing it comes from how much was carried.

If we don't hold it, who will? That's the question to figure out. To put things down. To stop holding them so tightly. Just let them leave. See who else will carry the things you can't. It's time to let go, and only hold what is yours to hold, in the way you want to hold it.