My hands are rather large. I have long fingers, square palms, and strong nails. When I was younger, my big hands made me horribly self-conscious, especially when I was onstage. They seemed so much larger than the other girls', and were expressive to the point of wildness. I felt like I was constantly flagging down overhead aircrafts. I thought for sure that my hands appeared just as unwieldy to the audience as they felt by my sides.

Perhaps due to that paranoia, I’ve spent a significant amount of time observing my hands, and have grown quite fond of them. I like their length and width, their tone, strength, and mobility. I even wish they were bigger, sometimes. I know each of my fingers and the way they type, or draw, or move through the air, or pretend to play piano. I know the callus on my right middle finger from where I rest my pen, and I know my crooked pinky. And yes, I do know the back of my hand.

Place your dominant hand, palm-down, in front of you. Look at it. Now, lift that hand and extend just your index finger and thumb, curling the rest of your fingers towards your palm. Next, shove the index finger down your throat. Just for a moment. (Bear with me.) Withdraw your hand, placing it once again palm-down, flat before you.

If your hand shape and dental structure are at all like mine, you’ll notice that the back of your hand is marked by an arc of indentations, slight ones from your front teeth, deeper ones from your canines. The welt is such that it looks like you were trying to bite off your own finger with one chomp.

This is probably why many bulimics opt for the blunt end of a toothbrush. Me, I've always been a hands-on kind of girl.

On the back of my right hand, the most conspicuous marks were caused by my canines, one mark on the lowest knuckle of my middle finger, the other in the clear flesh on the back of my hand, slightly right of center. When I first started bingeing and purging, these marks would rise immediately after “the act,” but fully receded a couple of hours later. I was always careful to keep my hand hidden when the bite-mark was visible. Sometimes, a lesion would form, but it, too, would heal before anyone noticed.

Before long, however, my repeated purging, the constant friction between tooth and skin as I thrust my finger down my throat, fishing for the gag-reflex button, caused two small calluses to form to arm against the rubbing of the offending canines. I could never stop looking at them. Every time I looked at my right hand, there they were to remind me of my disorder, of the mountain I had to climb. My mother and my dermatologist were the only people to notice them, but they believed me when I dismissed them as forgotten scars from a clumsy incident with a toaster-oven, and didn't ask about them again.

I don’t tell people about these calluses. For one thing, it’s a little too graphic. Gross.

More importantly, I never mentioned the calluses because they become noticeably enflamed after I purge. They serve as red flags. I’m now pretty open about the fact that I’ve been struggling with bulimia, but I don’t want people to know the specifics. I don’t want them to know when I’m having a bad day, when I’ve fallen “off the wagon,” so to speak. I'm open in that I don't lie about it anymore. But it's still a private thing. I don't broadcast it. (All Diaryland evidence to the contrary, I know.)

A couple of weeks ago, I realized it had been a month since my last purge. In the past, when I’ve made it this far, it was only after a very conscious, tiring effort on my part, which would cease almost immediately after reaching my goal. A failed “one day at a time” approach.

This time, for once, it was not a banner event. It was a natural thing that I had gone a whole month without shoving my finger so deeply down my throat that blood was drawn by my teeth from my hand, and by my fingernail from my epiglottis. It may sound absurd, but I don't remember the last time this stasis has been natural.

Last night, I was looking at my hands, bemoaning the noticeable chalkiness caused by the dry winter air. I was reaching for my hand cream with my right hand when I noticed:

The calluses are gone.

They’re GONE, you guys! Those same calluses that I thought would be there forever, the ones I’d hidden under sleeve-cuffs and depicted in various macabre expressionist drawings (immediately discarded after being drawn), the ones I thought would be permanent marks, they’re gone. For the first time in years, I’ve abstained from gagging myself long enough to allow my skin to replenish. My hand no longer bears those mocking red eyes.

Where my eroded tooth enamel has been a haunting reminder of my weakness, and has made me feel like I was rotting from the inside-out, my hand has become a symbol of a small victories, my ability to heal from the outside-in. The most relieving part is, it finally seems natural.

Yay! I’m molting!

And I feel like there’s something lovely waiting just around the corner.

~ Last Five Entries ~

Moths, and Relative Nonsense - 08.18.05

I Finally Have Internet Access in my Bedroom. But, No Ashtray. - 08.09.05

Here I Am - 08.02.05

One-Armed Paper Hanger Earns her Wings - 07.29.05

Sugar & Lemon - 07.28.05

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BUY JEN'S BOOK! BUY IT! DO IT!

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BUY DEAN'S BOOK, TOO! YOU KNOW YOU WANNA! SERIOUSLY.

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