Scar: a mark left on something following damage of some kind. Yet, scars aren't simply confined to such a narrow definition as this one. Rather, each scar that we have holds a story, a moment, a memory that is forever inscribed onto our skin. Scars make us who we are now, and each one is a reminder of what we've gone through and how far we've come. So why do we go through such lengths to cover or get rid of them?
When I was five years old, I was playing tag with a cousin of mine, and as we were running around outside, I accidentally brushed past a huge, spiky tree that was in his front yard. I remember feeling a sharp sting of pain, and when I looked down, I saw that the tree had cut me deeply on my right wrist. And perhaps if I had told someone about what happened quicker, if I had gotten stitches rather than just covering it up with a bandaid, then maybe it wouldn't have scarred. But here I am, 15 years later, and I still have that scar on my right wrist.
People would always tell me not to worry about the scar, that I could always get surgery to get rid of it so that no one would ever know that it was even there to begin with. And growing up, I noticed how the media seemed to portray beauty in one consistent way: smooth, unblemished, and absolutely flawless, not a single imperfection to be seen anywhere. Scars, moles, wrinkles: these do not fit in with the ideal image of beauty that is constantly being propagated within our society.
But each scar is a story. And if that's the case, I have loads of stories: the scar on my chin where I fell on a Lego as a baby; the scar on the inside of my lip where my siblings knocked into me, making the right side slightly bigger than the left; the scar on my right knuckle where I had to get a wart removed, and the scar on the outside of my bottom lip that stretches white whenever I smile, whose story I've actually seemed to have forgotten.
Scars are nothing to be ashamed of, nothing that we need to try to cover up or remove. They are little imperfections that have not only forever become a part of our skin, but of our our experiences and our lives. They make us who we are: flawed human beings who have so much more to us than meets the eye. Scars represent moments in time that will forever be frozen in ridges and bumps, cuts and scrapes, clumsiness, pain, and tears. And we can't ever be who we are without them.
Scar: a mark that has made you the braver, smarter, stronger, more experienced, and wonderfully imperfect human being that you are today.
As Khalil Gibran once said, “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” You've earned that strong soul, that massive character. And those are things that definitely do not need to be covered up.
