Stupid Scar

There is this fantastic six (technically seven but the last inch or so has really faded in over the course of the last year) scar across my neck. I’ve had it in some shape or form for precisely 2 years and 11 months. My scar, with stories a-plenty, used to be the first thing I saw when I looked in the mirror. I critiqued it. I studied it. I frowned at it. I smiled at it. I wondered a lot, at least at the beginning, about what other people thought when they saw it.

But over the last few years, it has become so much a part of me that while I don’t forget it is there, I don’t give it much thought. It isn’t the first thing I see in the mirror. And, unless I’m meeting someone new, I typically don’t think twice about what is going on inside of others’ brains. Quite frankly, after my second surgery, it healed much nicer and is often just a pale pink line. Harder to notice. Harder to ponder about.

Except...

Except nights like tonight.

Washing my face I realized my scar was blazing red. At first I was confused and then a dawning came over me.

I have been stuffing emotions for two days. And my scar is literally a physical barometer as to my overall well-being.

In some ways, I guess it always has been. When my scar was new – within the first year or so – any time I was in the middle of uncomfortable situation or was disclosing something real about myself, my hand went to cover my scar. It took me sometime to realize I covered the most physically vulnerable piece on me to make up for my other areas of vulnerability.

Somehow, my scar continues to be my lie detector. When life is what it is and there are no outside influences, it is light pink...always noticeable of course, but that “forget about me” shade. When I’m tired, sad, down...my scar is pink. Not red, but not light enough to quite disregard. When I’m stressed, excited, sick, anxious, nervous, exhausted...my scar is red. An obvious red. And when I am angry, tense, hurt, upset, embarrassed, completely out of my comfort zone or I’ve stuffed any number of emotions...then my scar blazes bright red.

It seems...curious.

I’m sure there is a scientific or medical explanation for this but I don’t have one.

All I know is that the moment I saw my second smile glowing “cranberry” in the lip gloss department of shades, I had to step back and evaluate whatever it was that I hadn’t actually been evaluating.

Stupid scar.

It knows me better than I do.