How do I cut my teeth without my hands?

Before I’m awake, before I’m even aware that I exist again, I wiggle my fingers. I wait for resistance. In this moment, I can’t vocalise what resistance is, but I’m waiting for it. Before I’ve slipped into consciousness the day is already being determined, does it count, or is it lost? I repeat this movement throughout the day, this time conscious, looking for confirmation, constantly checking. They fall like dominoes, ring finger, middle finger, index finger. Index, middle, ring. When it hurts. When it doesn’t hurt. Waiting. 

I watch skate documentaries and listen to stories of people training for nine hours a day and I wish it were me. I want to sharpen my body like a weapon. I want it to cut like a blade. I want to take one thing I can’t do and do it over and over and over again until I win. I push down feelings of inspiration. I watch a new film I’ve avoided and my chest blossoms with momentum. I cut the oxygen off. There is a full stop after every urge. Urge and then stop. Dream and then stop. Forceful feelings surging and then stop; snuffing out the flame before it can bloom in the darkness. Inspiration becomes its own form of pain when there’s nowhere for it to go. It’s dangerous, these moments; the emotions that teeter on the edge before I gently, firmly push them back. I think, I have every opportunity now. Everything is waiting for me, and I stare at my hand and watch it ruin me. 

I edit slowly. Agonisingly slowly. Something that should take hours takes days. Something that should take weeks takes months. I am mourning constantly. Motivation and discipline don’t run the show anymore. I try and face using someone else’s hands but I can’t. I edge slowly through something I’ve been dreaming about for weeks. I try not to think about how long it will take until someone sees the thing I’ve made. I try not to attack hope as she reaches out to me. Instead, I savour it. The glimpses of something. I stare at my screen, at mundane things, the grey of my editing software and my chest flutters. These are the good days. But even these days are spent dodging the burden of exhilaration. I see something, some photo on my phone. Flashes of feeling that make it to the surface, trying to steal focus. Suddenly I’ll be gripped with the urge to do a photo shoot with people I don’t know… focus. You have one hour to do one thing. Prioritising has become a blood sport. 

I see a doctor. In his notes he writes, she is very protective of her hand. When someone reaches out, everything slows down. You don’t realise how many people grab you until your heart stops when they do. I have a nodule on my palm now. I constantly scratch there, trying to replace one pain with another. Trying to cover the nagging ache with a fresh bite of a new cut. 730 days of scratching and my palm has started to meet me halfway. I think Opus Dei would be happy to have me. 

I don’t want to write any more but, through dictation, it’s all that I can do during the bad times. It’s ironic that during these times I realise it isn’t for me. I hate writing about myself, and find that even writing fiction reveals more of myself than anything else. It always feels like a constant battle, overwhelmed with choice and the endless possibilities of describing a single moment when time is no consequence. Tweaking a sentence over and over and over again until it’s lost all meaning. There are pursuits that harness obsession and there are pursuits that breed it. I didn’t realise creative things would ever come easily to me until I started editing, even filming. There is an effortlessness to creating films that I never knew existed. Every component falling into place. But pivoting is a constant. If this week, I can’t do this, I have to do something else. Writing is hell but it’s better than losing time. And something has to wrestle with the urgency inside of me and pin it to the floor. I think about how I never found value and happiness in work and now it’s the only thing that brings me joy. With nothing to do the abyss is hard to ignore.

Somewhere deep under the surface, I know it will end. I am reassured repeatedly, hands are slow but they always heal. I want to believe it like they do. I want it to be true. But impatience has a different meaning now. When the pain picks up again, I revolve through days of denial and anger, and the only descriptions that feel right are violent. Then the clouds suddenly part and resignation kicks in. A day is no longer a day. It’s a line in a tally. It’s a sequence in limbo. A run-on sentence. One moment slipping into another. When someone asks how my hand is, I stare down at it like it’s a child I’m disappointed with. It feels like a raw, open wound. I half expect to see it glistening. But there’s nothing there to see. I look back up. Ache has always been my favourite word. I hold my enemy close. I touch it possessively.