I was thinking about scars today after I noticed some on my
arms. This isn't a new thing to me, many of them have been a part of me since I
was a child. Bike accidents, fights with my brother, cat scratches, a few burns
and some intentionally self-inflicted. I've had most of them so long I usually
forget I even have them. In fact, most of my scars have faded so much you can
barely see them unless you know they’re there. None of them are exactly what I
would call disfiguring; in fact, no one even mentions them (excluding a rather
large and recent burn which will fade in time).
But sometimes this makes me wonder. Do they really not see them?
Is it just because I am surrounded by adults who know how to hold their
tongues?
When I was a child, back when I still engaged in fights with
my brother, I had fresh scars and cuts all over my arms. People asked me about
them constantly and as a shy girl, I was embarrassed by all the attention I was
getting over something so ugly and repulsive. I got teased at school and I got even
more self-conscious than I already was. I started to think something was
seriously wrong with me. I ended up wearing long sleeves to avoid the barrage
of questions and the merciless teasing.
Today, I randomly decided once and for all to count my scars.
I got a pen and put a small black dot on every single one I could find. I
counted 93. 91 percent of these are on my arms alone. For some reason, this number
made me cry. Something I hadn't even thought about in so long, something I had come
to accept, was making me self-conscious all over again. I’m not exactly sure
why quantifying made it seem worse. Nearly 100 scars on my body. It’s kind of
hard to wrap my head around.
I've always noticed girls with smooth arms, with even
coloring and no ugly white lines. I've imagined running my hands up my own arms
and feeling smoothness instead of bumps. Subconsciously I have been doing this
for years. Bashing this aspect of my own body without even realizing it, somehow thinking I
had in fact accepted the reality of it. I will never have smooth skin like the
stars in magazines.
Then I thought, “So what?”
I had at one point learned to be proud of my scars, but in
the few minutes I took to count them I had forgotten that. My scars show that I
overcame something. They are a story to tell; a story of my strength. When I
was 10, I fell off my bike in our gravel driveway showing off for my aunt and
grandmother. The result was a sizeable chunk of skin missing from my knee and a
four inch gash on my calf. When I was 12, I had surgery to remove an ovary that
had developed a cyst the size of a grapefruit. It was one of the scariest moments of
my life and I survived it with a 6 inch scar on my lower abdomen. When I was 14, I
had a mole removed from my face that had started showing sign of potential
malignancy. My mole was found to be benign and I have a one inch scar on my
cheek to remind me that it could have been so much worse.
So, I may never have smooth arms. I may always use extra
concealer on my face. I may always be self-conscious of the scar on my stomach.
I may never wear a bikini and I may dread future lovers seeing it. I may at
times get wrapped up in vanity. But these scars are a part of me. These scars
ARE me. I have heard people say “We are not our scars,” but I disagree. I AM my
scars. The experiences that caused these scars made me who I am today. I have
overcome a lot and I will forever advertise that on my skin. Many have worse scars than I do and they have overcome even greater
hardships than I.
