I've got a large one in the center of my knee. When I was in Kindergarten, before I knew better than to tie my dreams down, I thought I could run as fast as the cars whizzing past my elementary school. I remember the second I realized it couldn't happen, as my legs and hands hit the concrete. I now have a quarter sized reminder of that dream on my left knee. It seems to have become more pronounced these past few years.
I've got a massive mosquito bite scar on my right forearm, from late night picnics with my family in the back yard. My parents made PB and J sandwiches which seemed to taste a million times better outside. My small suburb was loud with cicadas, and heavy with heat, as my sister and I sipped lemonade and had watermelon seed spitting contests. It was worth the massive bug bites.
In middle school, I grew on average at least 2 or 3 inches a year, and my legs have stretch marks to remind me. My best friend told me to call them tiger stripes, and that they should remind me of how tall and gorgeous I am. She made me buy a two-piece swimsuit freshman year of high school, and slowly taught me to accept the non-photoshopped version of myself. My "tiger stripes" still serve as a reminder that my body has achieved some incredible heights (ha ha, get it?!). I'm not sure I ever thanked her.
My senior year of high school, depression and anxiety took over. Inner turmoil overwhelmed the outward love and support I had from my friends and family, and a chemical imbalance in my brain told me I was not worth living. For two years, the scars on my wrists and forearms multiplied, and I had nothing to attach them to. I found no kinship in pain, and no solace in my wounds.
It took a year. It took a year to regain balance in my life. But, I knew I had to tie these scars to the road I had traveled.
After these years of healing both physically and emotionally, I found a way to celebrate. A local tattoo artist named Turbo at the incredible Deluxe Tattoo in Chicago, IL worked with me to create a phoenix design for a tattoo to cover a majority of my forearm scars. After two six hour sessions, incredible amounts of bright ink and meditative buzzing, no matter how cliche it might seem I found a moment of rebirth in my phoenix. I celebrate my success, my joy, the kinship I have found in others who have had bumps in their roads, and the beginning of peace with my body, and my scars.
I hope you get a chance to celebrate your body and what it has done for you. And, hold tight to the parts of you that transformed in those moments of pain.
