Embracing My Scars: A Journey of Resilience and Adventure
My body is adorned with scars. If you ever want to talk stitches, I have had many, but the most stitches I’ve ever had come from my first encounter and need for them. I was eight years old when I survived a car accident. Something within the car: the glass from the window, the car, or perhaps the Christmas toys surrounding me lacerated my forehead. The delicate skin rolled up like a lampshade and required over 50 delicate, fairy-like stitches to recover. The second encounter with stitches was when a benign tumor was removed from my foot in the 8th grade. Then I had a solid decade between needing them, but in 2024, when I was diagnosed with Stage 1 Melanoma, I stopped counting the biopsies and stitches for the sake of my mental health.
Therefore, it seems only fitting to me that mental health awareness month and melanoma awareness month should be in the same month because they are, for me at least, one and the same. I am so fortunate to be a cancer survivor and have had the privilege to afford preventative health care and cancer itself. A funny thing happens when you stand face to face with your mortality so young and then be reminded in your early twenties that you are not, in fact, the invincible force you pretend to be.
Author Glennon Doyel talks about sobriety and how, since becoming sober, she has never felt okay. This is how I describe being a highly sensitive person (HSP), a term claimed by psychologist Dr. Elaine Aron. To add more context, if I were a Disney character, I would be self-described as Olaf, full of fun facts and a whole lot of existential dread; components only heightened through my experiences of the health of trauma.
When Adam and I got married nearly 10 years ago, our wedding photographer offered to edit my melanoma scars on my back. My wedding dress was gorgeous, with delicate lace and a plunging back that showed the crisp pink of the healing surgeries. Additionally, I had 3 biopsies the week before. Two out of the three turned out to be malignant and required removal. They were going to prioritize getting me in before our two-week honeymoon. I remember taking the phone call in my outback Subaru and sobbing on my steering wheel as rain pounded the car. I think Mother Earth was crying with me.
Long before, I was a mother, a wife, or a working professional. I was an athlete. Summer days were spent on the tennis court or the lake doing any water sport I could try (thus, the increased likelihood of skin cancer). I was an avid camper and took many hikes with my family, naming the trees. My mother, being an educator, always took the opportunity to interpret and teach the natural world to me.
In college, my sister introduced my boyfriend and me to rock climbing. I dropped the boyfriend but kept the rock climbing. Like Olaf, my bravery often comes with clauses, and I don’t always pursue things without nerves. The first few times on a rope, I maybe only made it halfway up the wall until I was mentally strong enough to reach the top. Then, I discovered bouldering and retired from ropes. My love for bouldering continues to this day, but the nerves still take conquering the first top out (going from climbing the boulder to standing on top of it) of the day.
While climbing is inherently dangerous, I’ve managed to do it safely. However, within the first six months of my mountain bike, I had to take a trip to the ER. I still have the very sliced knee as evidence of this encounter. Flying over the handlebars, I remember thinking, “Well, there is a first time for everything!”
I do sports that scare me in places that I love and fill me with wonder, but I do the sports that scare me so I can continuously show up bravely in life. I am flexing my physical and mental muscles to show up and do my life with poise and ease. The scars no longer scare me. They tell of adventures big and bold and share how I showed up in life ready to love fiercely and be a force of good. A scar after all is nothing short of a map of how adventure came to be.
