Scars

Like most people, I have scars.

I have many, many scars.

I have visible scars. Scars from accidents, like the one on my left knee the size of a nickel, where I fell at my cousin's house and a sapling stump jammed itself through the skin and under my kneecap. It's still indented and the bone is chipped. I have other scars from situations I couldn't really control, or maybe shouldn't have been in. I've got a burn scar on my upper left arm that matches about eight other peoples'. I have a scar that starts just behind my left shoulder on my back and runs, thin and long, across that shoulder and almost to my arm. Scars created purposely, scars from accidents, scars I can't even remember getting. There are the scars on my hands and arms, too. Those scars are silent witnesses. They are the ghosts of anger and pain past. Some are from punching brick walls, punching through glass, and other similar experiences. Some are simply self-inflicted, with knife or glass or whatever else. Some were simply meant to bleed.

Then there are the internal scars. Surely my lungs are scarred from thirteen years of cigarette smoking, not to mention marijuana and random inhalants we used to get high off of. Bones that have been fractured, broken, chipped. Just because you can't see them doesn't make them any less real. And then, there are the emotional scars, mental scars. Ah yes, these run the deepest, don't they? The scar left by a man who stole my innocence as a child and tormented me for years, and even longer still in my dreams. There's the scars left by death--my father, my Nana, Granddaddy, aunts and uncles I loved dearly, friends that died far too young. There are scars from my brother, and all the many times I almost got to have him, only to have him arrested, or be forced to run to avoid it, or mom telling us to lock the doors, or have him drive away and not look back as I ran after him screaming his name and crying. There are scars from love--leaving behind the first man I ever loved, crying and refusing to eat for 2 days as I flew from San Jose, Costa Rica to Garden Valley, Texas, and then to Norfolk, VA where I ate my first meal and saw the possibility to heal. The scars from a man I thought I loved, enough to give away a precious part of myself, only to be strung along and finally discarded. There are scars from my uncle, who seemed to swoop in and destroy everything that was left from my Daddy, taking over our lives by force; years later he refused to walk me down the aisle because I sent an invitation to my brother, and he had to 'support his family'.

So many scars. So much pain. I've often thought back on my life with a feeling of having been through and seen so much more than most of the people in my life. It gives me a sense of urgency for the important things in life, and an immeasurable impatience for the petty.

I spent so long drowning--in pain, in anger. I tried so much to make it stop. I wonder sometimes how I ever survived. But I never wonder why I survived. That part is clear to me, as clear as if someone whispered it in my ear.

Every scar has a purpose, each one a unique story to tell. They tell of a time when I had to heal, a time when all seemed to be lost, a time of pain. Each scar tells a story of hope. Of how, in time, I healed, just a bit changed. And overall, a conglomeration of scars that have healed, or are healing still. A vast canvas of stories--stories not just of pain, but of hope, healing, love. All these scars have brought me here, to this place in my life. This place, with its ups and downs, injuries, sicknesses, and imperfections; with its hope, love, happiness, and purpose. Each scar has brought me here, with a deep understanding of those around me. With a clear purpose to make a difference in the lives of those people.