The Smiling Scar
I find myself trying to gain back a sense of normalcy but I realize that it will never be the same as it was before: my life. Last Friday as I was sitting in the doctor’s office and feeding Anthony, I gazed out of the big glass window and thought, I am a mother. I am not just someone’s mother, but I am Anthony’s mother. This gives me such a sense of purpose, a clear understanding of what happiness really is. It’s as if he has come into my life and shaded over that part of my soul that I thought was perpetually locked in sadness. He has filled up the empty black hole.
I keep thinking of the smiling scar that sits above my hairline, where he was taken out of me. It’s been burning and is very tender at the moment and I realize whenever I feel or touch it that I will never be the same person again. I used to say that mistakes were only scars that fade but now I’m beginning to realize that scars don’t always have to symbolize something negative. Sometimes you have to look at one to realize just how much you’ve changed. Feel the hard and raised line that’s formed above the skin and know that it’s okay to grow. I’d like to get flowers tattooed around it to remind myself that it’s a beautiful thing, that without it Anthony would never be here, alive and growing. But perhaps the scar itself can be my tattoo.
I’ve been thinking about my stance on tattoos lately and it’s strange to me how I don’t want anymore, at least not for now. I think my body has been put through so much pain these past couple of months that I have no desire to put myself through more of it. I was thinking the other day about how it’s become a kind of needless pain for me. Before I think I needed it to feel something, to purge the mental and emotion pain out of my body. But I think going through the pain of childbirth has let me see that I don’t need my old addiction to that kind of pain anymore. I still love my tattoos and what they mean to me, but what I love more is the little scar that serves as a permanent reminder of how my son was brought into the world. It’s beautiful just the way it is. And maybe I should start considering myself as being beautiful too, because he came from me and nothing that special could come from an ugly or tainted person.
I keep thinking of the smiling scar that sits above my hairline, where he was taken out of me. It’s been burning and is very tender at the moment and I realize whenever I feel or touch it that I will never be the same person again. I used to say that mistakes were only scars that fade but now I’m beginning to realize that scars don’t always have to symbolize something negative. Sometimes you have to look at one to realize just how much you’ve changed. Feel the hard and raised line that’s formed above the skin and know that it’s okay to grow. I’d like to get flowers tattooed around it to remind myself that it’s a beautiful thing, that without it Anthony would never be here, alive and growing. But perhaps the scar itself can be my tattoo.
I’ve been thinking about my stance on tattoos lately and it’s strange to me how I don’t want anymore, at least not for now. I think my body has been put through so much pain these past couple of months that I have no desire to put myself through more of it. I was thinking the other day about how it’s become a kind of needless pain for me. Before I think I needed it to feel something, to purge the mental and emotion pain out of my body. But I think going through the pain of childbirth has let me see that I don’t need my old addiction to that kind of pain anymore. I still love my tattoos and what they mean to me, but what I love more is the little scar that serves as a permanent reminder of how my son was brought into the world. It’s beautiful just the way it is. And maybe I should start considering myself as being beautiful too, because he came from me and nothing that special could come from an ugly or tainted person.