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Day One Hundred Thirty One:  Scar Tissue

After years of surgeries I’ve been left with a handful of prominent, never-leaving scars.  It isn’t a big deal, if anything they contribute to the mosaic of who I am, and the story, my story, of how I came to be who I am.  The thing that gets me is that not everyone knows about these scars, but I do.  Why do they bother me so much?  Why does the possibility of non symmetry make my blood boil?  It might be my perfectionist mind talking, or the fact that I feel that every person around my age values looks to such a high value that I feel I should as well.  These scars, they suck, and they hurt to come to being there, but they’re there, and I can’t change them.

I’ve been feeling a little off lately.  Blame it on the anesthetic, I suppose, but I’ve been kind of stuck in my own head.  I’ve only been inside the house for a few days and I’ve already forgotten the sunshine (although the rain hasn’t helped a bit).  I wonder why if I stop wearing my cosy jeans or my dresses why I start feeling so bad about myself and my body.  It doesn’t change much, but put me in something other than my usual comfortable clothes and I’m lost. 

I could blame society, and the media, for forcing this beautiful Barbie looking young portrait of perfection atme, or I could blame everyone my age hitting the gym and binge drinking, soking, and eating in order to maintain the right look.  I blame myself, however, for letting these things get to me.  I want to be healthy, that’s always been my goal.  I don’t care that my jean size is bigger than my girlfriends’, or that I don’t go to the gym every single morning for two hours.  I do what I can, what I can handle, and I’m okay with that.

II remember in highschool and girls wondering and worrying about their hair length and if they were wearing the right shoes, while at the same time I was worrying if my eyes matched, or if I had an eye at all, r if I’d be able to see my kids in the future.  I preach this a lot, but for the love of pete don’t take what you have for granted, it could always be a lot worse.  And I haven’t had it that bad, I mean there have been struggles no doubt, but I still have one decent eye (by my own standards, of course) and I have a good enough head on my shoulders.  We all make mistakes, but that’s how we learn.

My scars remind me that what I’ve gone through has been worth it.  I started writing a different piece today and it has already taught me about what I know about the age that I am, my own maturity and the people around me.  I get confused sometimes about the things that my sister worries about, but I realise she’s four years younger, just graduating highschool, and I for sure worried about similar things at her age.  The thing is, those kinds of worries don’t go away as you grow older, they just change slightly to fit the responsibilities you have to take care of. 

I guess my memories, the good ones and the bad, the successes and the mistakes, are a kind of reminder towhat I have gone through, and the struggles I’ve had to deal with, and sometimes thinking of those memories themselves remind me that it has been hard to get here and we are allowed to make mistakes and fall but there are always those times when we will fly.  My memories haunt me at times, as my own scars on my body do, and sometimes I’m embarrassed by them or try to shuffle over them, but in all honesty it would do me a great favour to just accept them, because it just shows maybe a little more personal but all the more important side of me.

Not that I’m going around flashing my scars or anything, I’m more focusing on the new one behind my ear which my mom has thankfully assured me that the stitches will come out on their own.  Every time I move my hair the stitches pull and it hurts, but it’s all working towards a healthier me, so I’m fine with it.  Just working towards a better version of me.

I have a hard time thinking of the mistakes that I’ve done, but I remind myself that those are in fact different versions of me.  They might be recent memories, or far in the past, but mistakes are meant to happen for a reason.  I don’t really regret much because it has helped me grow.  I wish I learned more from my mistakes, maybe that should be added onto my new year’s resolution list, a little late but better now than never addressing it.

I’m off to watch probably Sherlock then bed, love,

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