Aging Hands

Yes. This is my hand. The dead giveaway. The one body part that cannot be ‘improved’ by procedures, creams, potions, lotions, or cosmetic surgery. It’s the one body part that the beauty industry doesn’t focus too much attention on because frankly there is not much money to be made when there is very little that can be done to aging hands. I can fudge the years a little with hair dyes, make-up and concealer. I can workout until exhaustion, however nothing can hide the painful truth—I am middle aged.

Painful truth in my case because I am dealing with arthritis. I was diagnosed when I was merely fifteen years old! I remember yammering about it with my friends in high school and we all had a good laugh. It didn’t occur to me to mind because I foolishly thought that by the time it would affect my life I would be in an equally aging body, and my hands would be the least of my worries!

They are now my blatantly obvious ticking time clock. My reminder that time is passing and that I find myself approximately halfway through my time on earth in this current lifetime. There are moments when I feel I have so much life to still live and so much more to learn. I have moments, however, when I feel every minute of my forty-three years and the thought of only being about halfway through seems to be a heavy, daunting burden.

Thankfully, these wallowing sad feelings are immediately lifted when present day life comes screeching across the floor into my bedroom—jolting me back. My son’s electronic toy robot or my daughter calling out from her bedroom for some homework advice are good reminders that I am not done yet. I have a lot of parenting and living to still do. Although the less-than-silent ‘ticking’ pain of my finger joints are now a daily reminder of my time left, I know that the second half of my life—in a sense—is also a second beginning.