Underlined

A couple months ago I decided that I like my scar.  It was more of an epiphany than a decision, really.  I do my best to stay away from mirrors, but they are not entirely avoidable--and when I do catch myself in front of a mirror, I do a lot of scar-gazing.  I suppose I do it in order to assess whether it has been fading, as well as to force it into feeling like part of me.

The story of learning to accept and embrace one's scars and "imperfections" is an old story.  I have a vertical purple indent on my right shin from a broomball game at Miami during my freshman year.  I originally lamented the way it would glare from beneath a knee-length skirt; now that I am removed from college, I look at it fondly.  I have a brown mole between my left eye and the bridge of my nose that invites every three-year-old I have ever encountered  to touch it with his finger and ask with a scrunched nose, "Wussat?"  For that reason alone, the mole makes me smile.

But the moment I realized that I like my scar was not the result of any such conspicuous process.  The moment was not born from the slow-grown affection that repeated story-telling and question-answering can foster.  It's a scar that no one sees.  Fondness and affection aren't accurate responses.  The scar certainly isn't likable in an aesthetic sense; it's crooked, and the sheer depth of the scar makes the skin above it bunch up in an odd way when I sit down.

No, the moment I realized that I like my scar was the moment I saw my stomach underlined.  It took no amount of self-convincing, no clever twisting of my perspective to see it as such.  I simply saw my stomach, underlined in case I ever forget about its most phenomenal ability.

I suppose I don't like the scar, the underline--I love it.  I love it with the kind of love that shakes you, makes you angry, elates you, makes you weep, tosses you from doubt to certainty and back.  It is so much more than a good story.     

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