Piano Hands

A few minutes ago I happened to look at my left pinkie finger. For the first time I noticed that it looks deformed, much as my right pinkie finger does which developed its deformity a few years ago. The middle joints are affected in such a way to cause those fingers to be unable to fully straighten.

I said to myself, it’s only a matter of time before all my fingers look like that: claws.

Growing up and for decades really, people told me I had “piano hands”. What’s that, I asked. Long slender beautiful fingers, elegant hands, they said. You should be a hand model, they said.

My mother had piano hands once. And then, later, she didn’t. Her fingers grew curved, her finger joints grew large. Just like mine. I’ve been inwardly grieving my bulbous arthritic finger joints for a few years now.

I can’t stop it, the onward march of time wreaked on my body.

My inner voice says I can change this, I can do energy work or Dispenza meditations and I can change this. But changing all that requires changing in my body and emotional state seems monumental to me now.

And I am so tired of fighting for my life. I am all alone and I don’t want to anymore.