Life and Lines

Feeling a little introspective today.  I had my annual physical -- and yes, all things are just fine, thank goodness! -- but I saw this poster and thought, yeah, that's me, that's right.  My life hasn't always been easy, but it's been bearable.  I've made it this far, and every wrinkle, every mark, every scar, is just evidence that I lived.


One of the things I tend to notice on people are their hands.  You jut can't hide much with hands.  There are "prissy" hands of people who don't do as much as others who have well worn hands.  I like large squarish hands; I don't mind scars, bumps, bruises, even a little crookedness -- it means you've used your hands to do something in life.


Me, I work with a lot of cardboard, my hands are dry a lot of the time.  They're also squared up, my fingers are short and kind of stubby.  I have scars scrapes and cuts much of the time.  But I do honest labor, I come by these marks because I am not squeamish about doing hard work.  But they're also known to be loving, to caress or massage a person I care about with them; I have helped people move with them, taken photographs with them, painted, gardened, lifted, hoisted, shoveled, hauled and anything else under the sun.

It's the same with faces.  We've all walked our walk, we've endured pains and enjoyed happiness, and everything else in between.  The lines on my face -- well, I like to think of them as character lines, not wrinkles.  It took a lot of years to have this much character -- and I don't care if it shows!

Life isn't meant to be easy - it's meant to be lived!

and if these character lines are any indication --- I have definitely lived!  :)