Hands down

When I was an adolescent, guys’ hands fascinated me. Not in a creepy “there’s a website for that” kind of way, but in more of an aesthetic way. I blame reading.

I read the start of John Gunther’s Death Be Not Proud, where he went on and on about how beautiful his son’s hands were. Okay, that I thought was a little creepy, but it did make me notice other guys' hands.

I noticed how boyish younger guys’ (like me at the time) hands were, but older boys had blood vessels visible, probably the bones of their hands, too. I wanted mine to be like that, in the way that a boy wants to be a man, not a kid.

I eventually got there, and the fascination ended. Then, years later, I started worrying about dry skin. Yep—getting older. That’s what made me remember all this, actually: I needed to buy moisturiser to deal with the leathery skin I was seeing on my hands.

It’s not something I ever anticipated, though I probably should have: I remember my mother using moisturiser all the time, my dad occasionally, usually in winter. I should have realised it was my destiny, but I didn’t.

It’s turned out, of course, that there are a lot of things about getting older I didn’t know about and, like finding the right moisturiser, I’ve muddled my way through those, too. Maybe that’s how most people get through the changes brought about by aging.

Next year, I have to get serious about looking after myself as I just couldn’t seem to manage this year. That’s not some sort of New Year’s Resolution (because I don’t believe in those), but rather more of a fact.

I don’t know how much of that effort I’ll share on this blog, mostly because I don’t want to bore anyone, but it does occur to me that there may be readers who are slightly younger than me who are just starting to experience some of these—What? Issues?—and wouldn’t mind the advice (or a heads-up to avoid my failures, which, come to think of it, is probably a more accurate way to put it). We’ll see.

But those changes, no matter how vital they may to me personally, are only some of what I’ll be up to in the New Year. As this year closes out, I’ll talk about some of those other changes here on this blog, because they will affect it (actually, there will be a few blog-specific changes, too).

For now, the important thing is that, for me, change is a good thing. Hands down.