If you follow my Insta (@SamhiC8LovesToWrite), you’ll know that at around 2:30 P.M. EST, I decided to paint my hands with henna and proceeded to try to go about with one hand.
That lasted… two-and-a-half hours?
Yes, because around 5 P.M., I went to go get ready to have dinner with some friends.
So, firstly, how did my experience forcing myself to use one hand go? Not terrible.
I did a couple of things. I made Maagi for lunch.
It was a success. I had to cut open the masala packets with scissors instead of tearing them with my fingers but it was still efficient.
Later, after eating, I was washed the pan, but when I was drying it, there wasn’t enough room on the counter and it nearly slipped. Usually I would’ve held the handle with my left hand and wiped the pan down with my right hand. Since that wasn’t an option…
After a while, I got hungry again. (When you don’t get time for breakfast, you make up for it with two lunches.) This time, I wanted tortilla. So that meant cheese, sour cream, and – obviously – tortilla.
The sour cream was easy. Pop the top open and take some out with a spoon.
The cheese, not so much. The zip just wouldn’t unstick when I tried to pry it open with two fingers. So I used my teeth. I clung onto one side of the bag with my teeth and pulled the other wise with my fingers. Closing the packet was easy. I laid it down on the table and pressed the zip close.
The tortilla was wasy to open. Closing was difficult. I think the most difficult thing I had to do in the whole two-and-a-half hours. It was a tie. And I had to gather the end of plastic packet together first. With one hand, turns out that’s not easy in the least. Took me a couple of tries…
I managed to get it done eventually.
The rest of my time, I spent on a Zoom call for a college club meeting then watched a movie on my laptop. So, it was chill. I did realize that I can’t take a screenshot on my phone with one hand. I kept trying to press both the buttons at the same time with my fingers, but there just isn’t enough pressure.
At couple minutes to 5:00, I washed off the dried henna and took my time with a long hot shower.
The henna could definitely have been deeper and more vibrant. But that would require an all-nighter. And I couldn’t do that tonight.
Why?
I needed my hands free tonight.
Oh, stop, not for that. I’m painting a man- Nope. Still sounds off!
I am making a painting of a man. Raj. Jagapathi. As of late, he’s back in my head. Thus the henna design:
I’m not dissappointed. Missed him. His comfort, his wit, his sexy eyes that seem to really see me.
I mean, he is my subconcious.
Well, Raj, not Jagapathi. But you know that by now. In any case, I decided it was more efficient to get the henna done earlier in the day and I was willing to spend a couple hours just not using my hand than sleeping with it on and washing it off in the morn.
It wasn’t that much of a hassle. There was one moment when I wished I couldn’t use the hand. Less because I needed to use it and more because I simply couldn’t.
My fingers were getting stiff and cold.
I couldn’t bend them, stretch them, scratch them, anything.
That’s when I started to get a little irritated. But here’s the thing – it was a choice. I could just as easily have decided to wash the henna off much earlier and reapply it later in the night if it bothered me enough.
I think that’s the difference. It is very much possible to live without a limb, an eye, an organ (well, some). That’s not the point. It’s a matter of how it went. And it’s less a matter of “we can’t live without” because we can always find a loophole, but more “we can’t use it anymore”.
Let’s take a less drastic example. Cutting off our hair. A friend of mine a while back was telling me how badly she wanted to grow out her hair again and I know I never want to get mine cut again after that one bad haircut I got when I was in elementary school.
What about losing a job? Losing a relationship? Maybe fighting with family? Or a friend?
We can function without them. We can survive. But are we truly ever living?
There’s a difference between need and want. Between surviving and living. With one, we breathe oxygen and our hearts beat to pump blood into our veins and the electricity in our brains remains active. With the other, we inhale and exhale happiness, our hearts beat the names of those who have etched their signatures upon it over a lifetime, and our brains are filled with memories, emotion, impulse, and instict. To love, to protect, to respect, to avenge, to desire, to live every moment like it’s our last.
(And that’s “It’s” not, “Its”. Small side joke for someone – don’t worry about it, rest of the World).
So this opens up a new question: At which point is running after what we want that which we do not need going to be enough?
