Let’s face it: Our skin no longer has the luster of youth, our bodies certainly aren’t what they used to be, and unless you’ve led an extremely cloistered life, you’re sporting more than a few scars.
As the years march on, those changes are inevitable, and it’s easy to feel embarrassed and try to hide what you perceive as flaws with layers of makeup and sticking to black. But Brandalyn Mae Porter has a different take on it, and we’d all do well to listen closely.
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Brandalyn works as a manicurist at a long-term care facility in Texas, and when a new resident took a seat at the table one day, she told Brandalyn she just wanted a coat of clear polish. What?! Why in the world would she choose clear when she had an entire rainbow of colors to choose from?
“I asked her why she wanted clear and she said, ‘My hands are ugly, I don’t want to draw attention to them,’”Brandalyn wrote in a Facebook post about the encounter.
And here was this wise lady’s response:
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I then carefully responded with, “Your hands tell the story of your life. They tell the story of love, of care and adventure. These hands have touched and held things that most people can only wish to one day.â€
And with that, she went with the color pink for her nails.
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Sometimes what we are so insecure with, others find beauty in.
This story went viral back in 2016 and any number of people wrote in to compliment Brandalyn on how well she handled the situation, and for changing the woman’s perspective. In fact, some even shared their favorite pictures of their family members’ hands, many of them wrinkled and liver-spotted with age, but still just as beautiful as a newborn’s since those spots and wrinkles speak of character and to a life well lived.
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We couldn’t agree more! So the next time you find yourself looking in the mirror and wincing at those crow’s feet, think of them instead as laugh lines, evidence that your life’s been filled with love and joy. Stretch marks? Proof that your body was strong enough to carry and deliver your children. And those liver spots aren’t sun damage, they’re gentle reminders of all those summer days you spent building sandcastles on the beach as a kid, and giggling with your girlfriends as the waves crashed ashore.
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