My Scars Tell Me I Must Have Been Exciting

Since I end up regaling interested parties with stories of my scars, I thought I would put all those stories in one place.

I'll start with the ones on my face. There's one above my left eyebrow from an accident when I was five. My older brother was cutting off strings left on my sister's bike from a makeshift basket they made with an empty Kudos box. I was sitting behind him on my own bike, patiently waiting until he was done so I could follow him out of the shed. My brother, either unaware of my presence entirely or my proximity to him, made a grand gesture of sweeping the scissors behind his head to attack the very last string. (By the way, these were not safety scissors or child appropriate ones. My brother had snagged the large, adult sewing ones when my mother wasn't looking.) During the journey to the handlebar, the scissors sliced above my eye, leaving me howling. I don't remember much after that except lying on a table in the doctor's office waiting to be stitched up. My mom later told me that I fought so hard, I bent the stitching needle and they had to call in two nurses to hold me down. I don't even remember the pain.

The other one on my face is also near my left eye, also caused by my older brother. I was six and wearing glasses at the time to correct my farsightedness. We were laying on the backyard swings on our stomachs, winding up the chains, then letting go so we would spin very quickly (I'm sure everyone has done this at some point in their childhood). Somehow our trajectories were unstable, and my brother ended up whacking his head into my glasses. I was cut a half inch from my eye. It bled quite a bit, but this one didn't require stitches, only a butterfly bandage. Doctors have told me if it was half an inch further to the right, I would have lost my eye.

There is a scar on my right arm that happened when I was thirteen. I slipped off a ladder and scraped my arm on a wooden fence. It's hardly there anymore but I can still feel it.

An inch long scar on my left ring finger also has to do with my older brother. I was using his skateboard to roll down our hill when I was eleven. I wasn't brave enough to stand, so I laid on my stomach. Not being sure what to do with my hands, I held them just above the ground. The left one slipped under the front wheel, which pinched a piece of skin from my finger.

I have multiple scars on my knees from playing tomboy and falling out of trees every summer. But the largest one (on my right knee) didn't happen from summer, or from falling out of a tree. During my first three years of education, I attended a private school with my elder siblings. It was built on a steep hill and the sidewalk from the entrance to the parking lot was steep as well. Students were told not to run down it all the time. One day, our ride had been waiting a long time for us and our mother's friend was getting antsy. We knew we needed to hurry up but having shorter legs than my siblings, I was still slower. So I allowed the grade of the hill to push me into a jog and before I knew it, I was flat on my face. Upon sitting up, I noticed a giant hole in my uniform-issued tights and blood flowing out of my knee. It didn't hurt at all until I saw that blood. My mom's friend had to carry me to the car. It wasn't a little skin. Everyone who observed it at the time called it a "hole". And it still overrides any other scars that would try to cover it.

Writing about all this, it would seem that I hurt myself on my left side the most. I don't do it on purpose; that side must just be more inclined to pain.

I do have a lot of other little scars on random body parts, but those are all from chicken pox. And even though it isn't a scar, I feel this post would be incomplete without mentioning my birthmark. It's about the size of an adult fist, squarish in shape, and sits on my right thigh directly above my knee. It was much darker when I was younger. I barely notice it's there anymore (except when my leg tans, which is rare). I used to think it looked like a country and would trace it over and over. For a long time, it was a source of insecurity for me. But it's just pigment. It doesn't say anything about me or who I am; it's just a part of a body that I won't have forever. I'm not going to let something so silly define me. Anyways, I usually forget about it unless I'm looking right at it.

There is your multitude of information about me for the day. I do hope you enjoyed yourself.