Scars

 

Photo by Terry Richmond on Unsplash

Last night, I noticed/realized that the dark stretch marks that appeared below my belly button in the last few weeks of my pregnancy have faded so much I can barely see them. My C-section scar is a thin white, almost luminous line, a linear sliver of the moon. I just assumed the marks and the scar would always be visible...after all, my baby is about to be two years old in two months, and only recently have they faded significantly.

Scars are funny things. You can't tell where a horse hoof nicked my hand and caused a hairline fracture when I was in my twenties, but I can show you where my skin was scraped off by asphalt when I fell off my bike in fifth grade. You can't see any scars from the glass that went into my neck or the airbag burn on my forehead during a car wreck. However, I can show you a small vein (deemed "incompetent" by a doctor, poor vein) that pokes out a little bit in my left calf -- the evidence of a pregnant mare stepping on my leg after we both slipped in slick Carolina clay/mud on a drizzly day.

Internal scars are just as tricky. I can't see the organs and muscle they cut into and sewed back up to deliver my breech baby, but if my stomach is brushed or touched in just the wrong way, whether by toddler hands or a piece of furniture or a T-shirt, my nerves get jumpy and pain radiates across my abdomen. The same goes if I move my core in just the wrong way: my muscles jerk painfully, like abdominal whiplash. It's unpredictable, which is all the more frustrating.

Emotional scars: perhaps the trickiest of all? Some memories, whether good or bad, fade enough that I forget them until someone brings up their own memory, and then I remember. Sometimes we forget things until we hear a song, smell a scent, or see a photograph, and then our emotions get jumpy, our hearts jerk painfully, and pain radiates as sharp as it did when we got the scar in the first place. Some barbs still hold their same sting decades later, unabated by the waves of years that keep crashing on the shoreline. 

I don't mind my scars. They make me feel tough. They remind me of what I've escaped and what I've gained. If anything, they make a good story. What are your scars and your stories, beautiful slivers of moon on your skin and hearts?