10 Minutes

 Sometimes I look down in my hands and it reminds me of what I've done to myself. My hands aren't soft and supple. They are discolored in places with patches of melanin here and there, the outskirts recede in whiteness. There's grooves and ridges. They remind me of my great grandmother's hands. They remind me of all the roads she as traversed and all the suffering.

I never took care of my hands. I would dig deep into the earth to plant and replant my mother's garden. I would wake up early in the morning to make her garden beautiful. She loved plants. She loved when verdant scenery peppered hour home. I remember the longest I possibly took doing the garden was about four hours. I uprooted two bushes (they took over an hour to take out) that didn't fit with the tiny garden the property had. I would run my hands through the deep dark earth until my short nails were filled with dirt on their underside. Yet, I loved it. The sweat scurrying down my temples, and the sun pressing itself against me. It was bliss, especially when my version of fun was running everyday of the week with my fellow team mates and tending my garden on the weekends. My french homework always kept me alive. The world of language is quite beautiful.

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I'm fighting to keep that love alive. I've run more than I've ever done since I quit my track team in high school, and I'm finally taking a reading French class. Here's to not giving up running and reading French because in all honestly for a long time that's the only thing that kept me going. Here lies the crux. My self- hate needs to turn into love. I want to cultivate love so badly, I'm running with it and not looking back, even if it means making a fool of myself.  A tout a l'heure!