I've been reading about different cultures' approaches to everyday life - maybe, like me, you saw the FB article that was floating around last year on the subject.  So I tried to find more information about tham (I especially was intrigued by the Danish concept of "hygge").

I read about 'wabi-sabi', the idea of honoring the broken, of mending it in a way that actually calls attention to the broken area instead of trying to hide it, and the idea that it's sort of saying that what matters isn't perfection or flawlessness.  When you read about it, the first examples used are things like broken pottery.  Instead of mending it as invisibly as possible, a practitioner of wabi-sabi might use gold leaf to decorate the glued-together line after it's repaired.

Fast forward to last night, when I got my first ever mani-pedi from a young local woman who specializes in providing that service for older, aching hands and feet.

I hesitated to schedule this, when I heard of her, for all the usual reasons:  I'm trying to watch my spending, and do I really want to call attention to my wrinkly, spotty, and increasingly twisted hands?  I learned of her business months ago and couldn't quite decide to do it.

But my tiny granddaughter called me out on something a week ago, and it changed my perspective, and I'd like to share it with you.  I couldn't open a jar.  Now, I've always been strong and independent; I have literally never asked a man to open a jar, pound a nail, anything like that at all.  I have taken pride in that, and perhaps later I'll examine that pride and see what's going on there that might need to be considered.  But on that day last week, I had to ask C. to open a jar for me, and I made some self-pitying comment about how I can't do so many things now that I used to be able to do.

She looked at me and shrugged and said "can you still love as well as you used to?"

Well, bam.  

Yes, actually I can, and of course, that's what matters.  I've been processing her comment on so many levels in the last few days.  My family doesn't care if i can open jars, but they do care that they are loved.  The world does not necessarily need superheroes whose skill set is opening jars, but superheroes who love?  Yeah, we need that.

I know I'm getting all squishy and philosophical on a site that isn't particularly interested in that, but whatever. I need to say this to you:  celebrate your awful, achy, spotted, wrinkly, twisty sore hands.  Instead of hiding them, decorate them, honor them, love them.  I have been thinking that my hands are awful....and one of the few family photos I have (we lost most in a flood) is a truly treasured one, a closeup of my grandmother's hands.......and they looked like the hands of a ninety six year old woman who had LIVED, you know?  I loved her, and I thought her hands were beautiful for the stories they told.  If my grandmother had hidden her hands away because they imperfect, I would have protested, I would have told her that they, and she, were beautiful.  And if someone else had said something negative about her hands, I'm pretty sure I would have committed a chargeable offense.

So we deserve no less, ourselves. It's a different way of thinking, to look at our RA hands and see resilience and beauty in them, but it can be done.  I did the full thing last night, the massage, the warm paraffin, the moisturizers and so on.  Sarah gently loosened some tight places in tendons and ligaments, and trimmed and shaped my nails, and I decided on a sort of beige-lavender color that's neutral enough to be okay for the next few weeks for me.  When I look at my hands now, it's a good reminder to stop and take a breath and remember to celebrate everything my hands have done in the last sixty years, and everything they still have left to do.

I have some inexpensive spiral rings that can be adjusted if necessary and I'm starting to wear them.  This isn't vanity, it's an act of defiance.  I may be challenged by aging and the RA, but I am sure as hell not done yet.  As we lurch into the hectic holiday season, find a way to give yourself some self-care, find your way to celebrate your own achy wornout wonderful self.