Scars

There are three small but noticeable rosey scars on the inside of my upper arm. The largest is only about a centimeter across, the others even tinier. Every time my husband notices them he gets a pained look on his face. I can see in his eyes the recollection of their infliction: the thin tube threaded into the scalpeled gash, quietly making its way under the skin along my bicep, jack-knifing in at the shoulder to nestle it's tip just above my heart. All summer long it stayed in place, a little plastic part of me, delivering toxins that would fry my veins and destroy my stomach lining - but ultimately be my savior. The PIC line itself left only one round mark but the stitches that held it in position those long six weeks tugged and stung and even harbored their own infection from time to time. And produced the larger marks. He asks if these pretty pink scars still hurt and tells me he's sorry that I must bear them on my soft pale skin. He stands above, looking with a tender eye. I tell him that I'm not. Not sorry at all. The marks remind me of where I've come from, where I want to go and the things I never want to take for granted again. I like my scars, I say. He smiles, for all my curious nerve and passion.

A dear friend of mine has wrestled with a dangerous addiction.  Three years ago she began to vanish.  Those who love her refused to let her disappear.  Her hand was forced and health returned - but she can't reconcile it all. We went walking with the moon last night and she wept and lamented the physical scars now weighing her down. I told her she was too young to put all her hopes in just one envelope. She wept again, lamenting the emotional scars now weighing her down. I told her that we've all got them. The surprising thing about scars is that they're secretly on our side. Our best allies.

Peaches and cream. Those are the words my dad always used to describe my snowy complexion. Everyone else just described me as "pale", except my mom who always added "deathly". But not my dad. Even as a young girl (maybe five) I remember him telling me I had perfectly beautiful peaches and cream skin. Skin men would swoon over, the skin of angels. He did not tell me this would come with a price, but I should have known. Even at five I should have known. Definitely by twelve. But the discovery was made instead at age twenty-four while lying in the bathtub, my swollen belly no longer able to submerge. I didn't mind. I liked watching the form of little Jude cause my taught abdomen to bulge in odd places as he made himself comfortable inside me. The left side, my doctor had told me, was higher and more pronounced because his tiny baby bum had nestled just under my rib cage. I greatly enjoyed the thought of this - knowing just how his sweet little body was snuggled up. Plus, it was a good sign, with only four weeks to go - my little one would come into the world head first.

So I lay in the warm water with my rounded form exposed and admired the shape of a girl about to become a mother. I stared with particular love at the left side and patted the baby bum bulge softly. It was then that I noticed a single plum-colored streak angrily stretching in a vertical line up that beloved left side. A poorly taxed left side, apparently. A left side that could bear no more. My pale, perfect skin had given way; split in it's effort to provide a perfect home for my child. After a few moments of speechlessness, I called for my husband. With the unknown soon inevitable, he'd been on high alert for weeks and was tub-side in seconds. Wild eyed, he found me with just one tear on my cheek and no sense of urgency in explaining it's presence. Was it the baby? Was I in pain? Was something wrong? No, no, no, I said. It's this, and I pointed to my left side. He brought his head in close, examining my scar thoughtfully for several seconds, then leaned over and kissed it. "It's your first love mark," he said. "A permenant reminder of the loving sacrifice you've made for our family." It was the right thing to say. I found out later he'd read it somewhere and liked it. Knew I would like it. Knew it was true. Say what you want about the flaws quickly accumulating on my body and in my life - I've done not just one but three near perfect things, and I'm happy. My body bears the scars to prove it, in case I forget.

My friend laughed when I told her the surprising thing about scars, a disbelieving chuckle that she's kept close since the early days of her disillusionment. I told her I'd never been more serious. I told her I was not only grateful for my scars, I desperately need them. Here my voice rose with the intensity of both my gratitude and my need. I'm thirty-two, I said (adding a particularly salient curse word in my head) and I am so tired of making the same mistakes over and over. I'm weary - exhausted, actually - from kicking myself for playing the same fool in the same naive ways; beating myself up for the same screw-ups rooted in the same stupidities. I'm tired and I'm sore. It's time I gain a little ground from all this falling down. Let the wounds teach me as they heal, let the scars serve as reminders of where I've been, what I've been through. But more importantly, what I've learned. What I've learned about finding truth and beauty, love and, most importantly, myself...in the most unlikely places.

Addendum: This was written while listening to "If She Wants Me" by Belle and Sebastian, so a few stray bits of lyric have been interwoven into the essay. Major cred to their brilliance.