Scars

I have lots of scars. I've had a lot of illness and injury in my childhood, I'm missing my tonsils, my appendix, and a kidney, and broke one of my collar bones.

Then... I have the scars.

The big one: They cut me in half, literally. It was a 12 inch cut on a 24 inch waist. Now it's pretty much just a long indented line across my abdomen just above my belly button. They cut one of my freckles in half. Twice. Now not only is it in half, but slightly askew... it kind of bugs me some days.

One across my heart: they had to put in a "port" so the medicine would go directly into my heart to get pumped around my body. That one goes unnoticed a lot.

A matching scar on my back from where they feared I might have skin cancer.... now it just looks like i was run through with a sword.

I have a scar on my wrist from running recklessly through the woods and falling on slate. I was rather facinated by the blood rather than scared.

One on my knuckle from trying to sled on a snowshovel.

And countless tiny dots from being poked and proded with needles.

The thing is... none of these scars are really important to me. It's the scar left by having my life so bisected... not by the surgury, but by my parents' divorce. They divorced before I was born, so I just grew up learning two separate sets of rules. I was pretty much on my own at my dad's house... left to play outside or entertain my younger brother. My mom had to have some structure because we spent most of the week there. It's hard finally coming to the realization, that even though you knew your parents weren't right for each other, that they were wrong about many things as well. We all make mistakes, and we all have scars, visible or not.

I wear my scars like a medal, I earned every scrape, cut, and ego bruising. It just made me a more resilient person.