Self Portrait Tuesday

When I was thinking about this month's theme, personal history, I thought about how we record and recall personal history. There's family and family photos, geographical spots like where you grow up and where you are now, there are memories associated with certain houses, songs, smells, and objects. But I've only lived in my current apartment for three years and before that I was in another state for just two and before that a different state for four. I haven't lived in the house I grew up in for about 10 years but I don't really have roots of my own yet.
So I feel like all my memories and history are part of me, literally. I feel like it's recorded on my body, in small scars from summer camp, new moles, old scars.
Below is a picture of my hands (it's hard to take a picture of your right hand when you're a rightie!). You can't see it all, but I've got a fresh little scar on my right hand near by thumb. It's from making candy cane bake for my family over the holidays. There are some scratches from my cats. On my right hand I have a writing callus on my middle finger. It used to be much bigger when I wrote everything by hand. And more recently I've developed a new callus on my pointer finger knuckle from cutting so much fabric. On my hand there are also three flesh colored scars from a cat bite. In middle school my friend's cat got outside and a neighbors dog started after it. I managed to pick up the cat but he bite me. That leads to other memories about the friends I was with. One is dead and I believe the other one is still living in my hometown. My point is, all these memories emerge just from looking at my hands. I carry my personal history around on my body.

Oh, and for a freak show element. You can kinda tell that my right hand pinkie is shorter than normal. There's a shorter bone lower in the hand so when I make a fist it looks like I don't have a pinkie knuckle!