I Still Wear Gloves

I Don't Confuse Pain with Proof Anymore 

Healing has a costume, and people love it when you bleed into it. They want the dirt under your nails, the bare feet on cold ground, the hands cracked open just enough to prove you earned your peace the hard way. They want recovery to look punishing, theatrical, holy in its suffering...as if pain is the receipt you have to show at the door to be believed. As if ease is a lie. As if choosing softness means you skipped a step. I used to think that too, until I realized how often I was hurting myself just to make the story convincing.

People love a dramatic healing aesthetic.

Bare feet.

Dirt under the nails.

Hands raw enough to prove you’ve felt something.

If you’re not bleeding a little, are you even recovering?

Anyway.

I garden in blue nitrile mechanic's gloves.

The tight ones.

The kind that snap against your wrists and let you feel everything without letting the world take a chunk out of you.

This matters.

⸻

I spent over a decade in the automotive industry. First as a technician, then as a service advisor, which is a very specific kind of character development… and hell.

It means I didn’t just take things apart.

I also had to explain why they were broken to people who absolutely did not want to hear it and those who'd already decided that it was my fault.

I translated catastrophe into estimates.

I stood between metal failure and human denial.

I learned how to say, “This will get worse if you ignore it,” in six different tones depending on who was yelling at me that day... and how committed they were to pretending cause and effect was negotiable.

My body remembers that life.

It also remembers brake dust.

It remembers the solvents.

It remembers how “just wash your hands” was a lie we all pretended was true.

So when people talk about healing like it’s supposed to be barefoot, bleeding, and raw, like suffering is the admission price, I just stare.

Slowly.

Like a man who has never bled explaining blood to me very confidently. 

⸻

Here’s the part no one puts on the vision board:

Your nervous system keeps receipts.

Sobriety didn’t delete my memory.

It turned the volume up.

Suddenly I could feel everything, the temperature, the silence, the way my shoulders used to live around my ears. I wasn’t numbing anymore. I was here.

So yes.

I said it out loud once:

The whole point of being sober is getting dirt between your fingers.

And then I laughed.

Because my fingers were gloved.

⸻

Let me be clear.

I still get dirt between my fingers.

I just choose which dirt.

I choose soil over solvents.

Roots over rust.

Growth over grind.

I garden in blue nitrile gloves. The kind mechanics wear when they still need precision - not armor. Not avoidance. Dexterity.

I’m not afraid of the earth.

I just finally respect myself.

That distinction is doing a lot of work.

⸻

Recovery spaces can get weird about this.

There’s a quiet belief that if you’re protecting yourself too much, you’re doing it wrong. That boundaries mean fear. That if you’re not raw, you’re not real.

But I’ve already lived a life where pain was currency.

I gave my skin to paychecks.

I bled for usefulness.

I learned to smile while absorbing impact.

I'm not auditioning for suffering ever again.

That casting call is closed.

The understudy has also declined.

Respectfully...no 🤍

⸻

Sobriety didn’t make me soft.

It made me accurate.

I don’t confuse exposure with honesty anymore.

I don’t confuse pain with proof.

I don’t need to hurt myself to feel legitimate.

I can touch the world with intention.

I can build things slowly.

I can be present without being porous.

That’s not weakness.

That’s skill.

And skill, unlike chaos, actually scales.

⸻

So yes.

The point of being sober is getting dirt between your fingers.

Mine just happen to be blue.

Tight.

Mechanic grade.

Because I already lived one life bare handed...

and it came with chemical burns, emotional whiplash, and a customer who thought yelling louder might reverse entropy.

This one?

I’m still in contact.

I’m just not paying in skin anymore.

I’ve bled enough for character development.

At this point, I’m gardening.