The Weight of Hands

Hands are strange things. They build and destroy, they hold and let go, they carry the weight of everything we’ve ever touched. My hands are no different. They’ve held love like it was something fragile, something that might shatter if I gripped too tightly. They’ve clenched into fists, trembling with rage, only to uncurl hours later, empty and ashamed. They’ve wiped tears, both mine and others’, and they’ve pushed people away when I thought I needed to be alone.

But hands are also liars. They pretend to be strong when they’re shaking. They pretend to be steady when they’re breaking. They reach for things they know they can’t have, and they let go of things they should’ve held onto tighter. My hands have failed me more times than I can count. They’ve dropped things, broken things, lost things. And yet, they keep moving. They keep trying. They keep reaching.

I think that’s what it means to be human—to have hands that fail but keep reaching anyway. To have a heart that breaks but keeps beating. To have a soul that’s been shattered but keeps trying to piece itself back together. We’re all just walking around with these fragile, flawed bodies, trying to make sense of a world that doesn’t make sense. Trying to hold onto something, anything, that feels real.

And maybe that’s enough. Maybe it’s enough to just keep reaching, even when you know you might not catch anything. Maybe it’s enough to just keep trying, even when you know you might fail. Because the alternative is to stop. And stopping is the one thing we can’t do.

So here I am, with my flawed hands and my fragile heart, reaching for something I can’t quite name. And maybe I’ll never catch it. Maybe I’ll never even come close. But I’ll keep reaching. Because that’s what hands do. That’s what humans do. We reach. We fail. We try again. And somehow, in the midst of all that failure, we find something beautiful. Something real. Something worth holding onto.