Once, my palm mapped only a few, distinct courses. The lines showed clarity; the spaces showed youth. I remember because at ten I studied palmistry the way a future engineer studies suspension bridges. Time, I suppose, had a hold of me even then.
Today, my hand is littered with pink lines blown in random directions, the sign of a nervous personality. Someone who worries. Is this change nothing more than decades of repetitive hand movement? Perhaps. But as the years pass, I can't help but think there is a glimmer of truth to this transformation. Yes, life inevitably hands us more responsibilities and greater burdens and takes us to unimaginable emotional extremes, all with the potential to transform that map. But for me, someone who plans incessantly, calculates all choices and weighs them against potential outcomes, considers and reconsiders every angle, I have forgotten I was once acquainted with the spaces between all those lines.
To say it is because I am a woman is narrow-sighted. Men worry, too. Maybe not to the extent or in as much technicolor, but burdens know no gender. To say it is because living in the city introduces more stressors doesn't hold, either. Cars still break down. Taxes still saddle rural roads. Family members still say goodbye. To say it is because I am blessed with many who depend on me pales in comparison to the person who worries alone.
When I look back at all the times where senseless worry tainted life's experiences, I'm saddened. I wish I could send a message back. Transcribe it into one succinct, pink line for my ten-year-old self to discover so that it would remain like a touch point whenever I needed it. Instead of worry lines etched at the eyes and brow, this new pink line would be called the don't worry line, appropriately placed equidistant from the head line that structures decisions and the heart line that guides them. Translated, it would be this: Stop letting worry taint this day. You'll be fine. It will all turn out for the best.
Ever present, I would have glanced at it the night I wanted to throw up when I realized my first kiss was someone's joke. I would have found it when I was ten thousand miles away from home and couldn't find a way back. I would have touched it when I heard the word "cancer". A thousand times between then and now, I would have known its power to help me find space again.
Today, I christened one. Ironically, near my fate line, it trails from my wrist like a kite string. It's strong and deep and pink with life. I never learned enough at ten to know its true meaning, but I've attached my own interpretation. It will still be there when I am ninety-two, but this time, and a thousand other times between then and now, it will say, "Stop letting worry taint this day. You'll be fine. It will all turn out for the best."
What do you think of palmistry? Did you find your don't worry line?
Like everything else palmistry has the same amount of truth attached to it as any other thing one attaches truth to.
I never bothered looking to the inside of the hand for direction because they were always busy holding a tool or someone up.
The moments when I find something to worry about, pass by swiftly enough because in the overall, just like you have learned to read your palm, I have instinctively learned to simply know that the best possible outcome is always going to be the end result of any situation I find myself in.
L.A., what a beautiful, thought-provoking post. I, too, am a worrier and it's been very hard (some days, impossible) to set free that inclination even temporarily. I remember looking at my grandmother's hands years ago and realizing I'd inherited them--hers had all those signs of age while mine had very few back then, but their size and shape were identical. I love my grandmother, so I was glad, but I realized that was yet another thing I couldn't control. I have to remind myself all the time that while there are many things within my realm of control, there are far more outside of it...
what mark sez...
my 'don't worry line' is non-existent, else i'd be dead
Beautifully said, L.A. I used to be an awful worrier, but as I've gotten older, I'm worrying less. Not sure why that is, but I think a part of me finally decided that to worry about things I couldn't control didn't do me any good. A positive attitude, while sometimes hard to muster, is something to strive for every day. What will be, will be.