Beauty And The Scar.

I have a love hate relationship with summer….mostly because it involves mosquitoes and something I dread most – second to the Ebola virus – it’s bathing suit shopping.

It’s pure torture and honestly, quite depressing. Sometimes I think I should just give up and wear a garbage bag (it’s black, slimming and water proof, right?) It’s a vicious cycle perpetrated by my desire to wear a flattering bathing suit (how dare I wish such a thing?) and Victoria’s Secret (let’s not even go there). Our culture’s standard of beauty has allowed us to believe that women are less than ‘ideal’; that flawless ‘perfection’ is the only option.

On my last visit to Miami, my sister and I took our boys to Matheson Hammock Park, a lovely tidal cove and beach, perfect for families. This is Miami, where youth and beauty are next to immortality. I noticed a particular woman there, with two children. She was of average build, wearing a bikini and enjoying the day at the beach with her kids. Her body visibly showed the beauty and scars of being a mother, of having housed and birthed two little human beings…and she was not ashamed of it. She wore her stretch marks, wrinkled skin and all, with confidence and pride.

All I thought was, she is the most beautiful woman on the beach.

‘Kintsukuroi‘ 金繕い – ‘to repair with gold’ – is a Japanese form of art where broken pottery is repaired with gold or silver lacquer. It is believed that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken; that breakage and repair is part of its history and it’s beauty is in the imperfection.

We all have scars.

Life experiences leave us with emotional, even physical scars. We feel the pressure to portray ‘perfect’, flawless selves. Perfect jobs, marriages, families… The REAL, broken us, with painful pasts, failures and struggles, might seem unappealing and even repulsive. But our wounds are part of who we are. To us, they might look unlovely; a blemish, a defect, but to someone else, they are a thing of beauty; a testament to what we have been through and healed. They can’t be erased, but they’re there to remind us that we’re still standing. 

Do we want to cover them up? Deny their existence out of shame or fear of rejection? Absolutely. But what if we chose to be vulnerable, yet strong enough to show the world who we really are and say “This is who I am. These are my scars. What are yours?”

Someone once said “Scars are stories, history written on the body”. Your marks are the story of your journey. Don’t be afraid to tell yours – a beautiful story of resilience…of a survivor.

“And if I could tell you one thing, it would be:

You are never as broken as you think you are. Sure you have a couple of scars, and a couple of bad memories, but then again all great heroes do.”
– –ltn