Owning My Scars

A few weeks ago, I posed for a photo session with my brother. The plan was to just capture pictures as I was getting ready to attend an event – we had a few shots of me doing my hair & make-up, spritzing on my perfume, screaming at the kids to keep it down… the idea was to keep to the theme on capturing expressions of regular activity.

A few days later as I saw the pictures, many of which I posted, I came across two particularly special ones that I couldn’t bring myself to post on social media – at least not then. I looked at them often and every time there was a different emotion and feeling. There were also those other feelings of anger when memories around the cause of the scars surfaced.

These pictures started off with me fastening a delicate anklet and then went on to show the suture marks on my ankle, the spot on my shin when the fracture had compounded and pierced the skin, the incision on my knee, and the one where my toe nail was healing… scars from trauma, some accidents others intentional…. scars…

Over the weeks, I kept thinking about the scars that I had accumulated over my lifetime. There were scars from the scald on my thigh, a burn on my arm, 4 incision scars on my belly (3 C-sections and 1 open appendectomy), stretch marks, bruises, jellyfish bite, chicken pox memoirs, pinch marks from childhood, suture points, fracture wounds… and then the darker remnants of a body that resisted and defended itself from violence.

Then there are those scars that have gone beyond skin, bones and tissue to sear into the depths of my being – those scars that have made an impression on my mind and soul. Those are the ones that we don’t always see – those are the very ones that I myself don’t always see or even pay attention to.

They are the scars that heal slowly – I’d like to believe they’re healing surely, too.

They are the scars that form the little stitches in the hemline and embroidery on the fabric of my self. The beads and sequins that form the shimmer on the ‘who I am‘ design  and ‘who I have become‘ pattern of me.

I’d love to say that the scars have faded and so has the pain. Well, it has for many of them. But some don’t vanish that easily, you see. They remain where they are and show up in photo shoots that develop into pictures that highlight their intricate beauty that gets a ‘wow!‘ even from me.

I love my scars! Every single one of them holds a story. Some stories of grit, determination and unfathomable awe. Other stories of joyful births, of motherhood and of unconditional love. Whichever way I look at them, there’s nothing to hide! These marks tell a story of a woman who has lived a life for forty whole years and has a body to show for all those years – with marks of failure and over-stretching, marks of endurance, suffering, pain, injury, grit, resilience, love and sorrow.

They’re all there and I own these scars. They’re a map reminding me that I may have fallen down eight times, but I’ll get up nine. They’re a reminder that for all those gorgeous dresses that I’ve worn over the years, these scars… I wear them like my own designer label – that stunning dress, my best attire… like a dress made of hellfire.

Coming Into My Own

I guess I’ve always been fiercely independent. Well, to be honest, it was more like a balancing act mostly – sometimes being fierce, at other times being independent. Let’s just say I have always been intense – both in my ferocity and my independence.

Yet, there were times when I would feel like the protagonist in the duck metaphor – successfully and calmly swimming my way across the pond, paddling furiously under the surface – but keep that smile pasted!

But, somewhere in this above-the-surface-below-the-surface mismatch, there was a disconnect – somewhere in this affray, I sensed I wasn’t being honest with myself – at least not totally, not brutally – not in the way I expected of myself.

So I set about doing nothing about it…. only to realize that I was actually getting myself entrenched in this wholly wondrous world of discovering ME (or at least the parts that I wasn’t totally in love with!)

Self-work is not necessarily hard, but it is serious work. You can’t get into it as a toe-dipping session. It isn’t something you opt-into when you have the time for it – it is a complete immersion – you get fully wet – and if you don’t know how to swim, you drink in some of the water too! There’s no room for hiding and masquerades, but there are plenty of mirrors and reflective ponds. There are volume boosters telling you about what a shit you are and how you’re not good enough for anything, but there even louder ones that you find to turn up the heat on those quiet whispers that say, “I got you, babe!” & “We’ve got this!“

It took me six months of this year to to align myself to ME. And it took me all of those six months to remind myself of who I am and what I wanted. ‘Soul questions‘ as Deepak Chopra taught us – so I asked myself every day, every month – and asked others while leading meditations and beyond – those questions that tickled the very deepest parts of our selves – and eked out a response so deeply buried under all the conditioning of ‘What will people say?‘ or ‘What would someone think?‘ or worse, ‘Do I deserve this at all?‘

That was when the penny dropped!

I was like, “Hey! Wait a minute…“… “Wait for just one bloody minute!“

Who exactly was in charge here?? Who was driving the shots and me taking a call on what mattered most for me? Who was validating my need, my desire, my want for happiness? Who exactly was allowing me (or disallowing me) my connection to myself – to me being me??

And I FELT it. I really, truly FELT it – in my gut, in my chest, in my arms, my legs, my head – I felt the WHOLE ME – I felt ALL of me come to life – in tingles and bursts and fireworks. I felt my cheeks flush and my blood rush to my head. I felt it love – with myself, with the world, with people around me. I felt the kinship to that beautiful roaring fire of my Martian Pitta Aries nature and personality! And all of them came to the fore.

OMG!! OMG!! I felt ALIVE!

I FEEL alive!!

That sexy glorious sparkling feeling of being IN your element! That awesomeness!

I realize that this journey of self-discovery has been my springboard to reconnection – to the real me. What I do is in synch with how I feel and what I want. Unapologetically, truly me – forging ahead without the need for anyone’s approval or validation. Conscious of my falls, yet unashamedly willing to dust myself off and step out – again and again…. Yet, keeping it real enough by pooling in the wisdom of hindsight and the expectation of foresight – tinged on the boundaries with the courage, confidence and passion of fire.

No more the furious paddling below the surface – because what you see is what you get!

Yes, I have come into my own…. and dancing to my own rhythm, my own fire…