Battle Scars

"It may be okay for boys to have battle scars but not girls," said my sister's surgeon as her reconstructive surgeries were being planned following her rollerblading accident the year prior. My poor sister had battle scars indeed; scars on her chin, nerve damage, three still-healing jaw fractures, and much damage to her teeth. The physical damage did not even begin to show the hurt and pain that her accident had caused within, thanks in part to teasing and odd looks as she began to overcome the challenges, both physical and emotional, during the early stages of healing.

These words bothered me from the moment I heard them uttered, and as the years have passed, they bother me even more to this day. The perfect pictures forcefully thrust upon us by beauty ads, magazines, commercials, billboards, and the other forms of media that promote perverse, unnatural ideas all around us all showcase the perfect, youthful, scar-less bodies that we all ought to strive for, and so this cruel ideal is held up at the standard, even when dealing with corrective surgery. For the longest time I could not put my finger on exactly what bothered me about these ideals. Was it the eating disorders, sexualization of children at a much too young age, and emotional brutality that these images help foster? Was it the cruelty displayed to older women, as there is not way they can attain youthful beauty, unless they go under the knife? Or was it something more? I found myself going over these ideals in my head, over and over again, even as I help perpetuate this mythical beauty in my day to day work as model and makeup artist.

One day, not too long after I washed my makeup brushes & hung them up to dry for the final time, a new friend shared a story with me that brought these thoughts rushing back into my head. This beautiful friend shared a story that truly broke my heart while leaving me fascinated at the same time. She had given birth to a son, who was very sadly born still. Like many mamas-to-be, she had spent a bit of time worrying about the effects pregnancy was going to have on her body, and has even went as as purchasing some products that supposedly prevent stretchmarks. She applied the oil religiously and a stretchmark had yet to rear it's ugly head by the time much more pressing issues surfaced in her life. By the time her story was shared with me, she was years away from her son's tragic death, but still the hurt lingered as one would guess. She shared with me that one of the most painful things to face during her healing was the fact that pregnancy has not noticeably changed her body. While many mothers probably dream of this, she was horrified; without any marks of pregnancy, it was almost as if her little boy has never existed at all. As if she had never been pregnant.

Upon hearing this story, witnessing what my sister had gone through took on a whole new meaning to me. My sister's scars came from profound events in her life that impacted her greatly and changed not just her, but also our entire family forever. Her scars represent survival, overcoming obstacles, and eventual acceptance of everything she had gone through. Her accident has change her inside forever, so why shouldn't bits of her experiences be on her outside as well? As this new understanding came to be, the marks of age, of motherhood, of surviving began to be seen in a much different light. No longer did fears of aging have quite the hold on me that they once did, and I even wound up throwing out the anti-aging cream I was using despite being only twenty years old. Looking at the amazing women all around me left me with a newfound respect for them all. Their beauty and wisdom was something I had always known and appreciated, but not in the way I should have. They weren't just beautiful *in spite* of difficult situations they had gone through and all the life they had lived but *because* of their rich histories, full of bumps, bruises, childbirth, and many scraped knees along the way.

Scars, stretchmarks, broken bones, marks of aging, and the physical remnants of life lived represent something more than so-called physical imperfection; they are part of the story of what makes us "us". The showcase the path of life that God has taken us on and are a real, visual reminder of all that lie in our past and the lessons we have learned and now carry with us into our future. Rather than things to loathe, they should be things to take pride in. The wisdom, guidance, learning, and changes that have come with each one have made you who you are today. The young, nubile, airbrushed women who help fuel the warped beauty standards that abound may have immense physical beauty, but she is lacking in the wisdom, experience, and true joy that a survivor of a traumatic event, a mother, and especially an older woman can hold so dear, share, and teach to others. Life will always leaves its' marks on us, both outside and within, and rather than fear what will naturally come on this oftentimes rocky path, why not give our remnants of life true respect and meaning. Rather than things to be avoid or corrected, embrace the real beauty that life brings our way--wisdom and experience that we can marvel about and share one day!

Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised- Proverbs 31:30

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