The Scar

I don't have scars from childhood, not from the times that I fell of my bike, not from the many times that I fell down the stairs. I don't have scars from picked mosquito bites or scabs like my mother said I would.

I don't have scars from the years of my late teens and twenties when I burnt and cut my flesh as an expression of the pain, hurt, anger, and resentment that slowly ate away at pieces of my soul. 

I don't have scars from car accidents or popping pimples. 

It seemed to me, for a while at least, that this body, this vessel that I was given, was impervious to the world that surrounded it. The shell at least. As for all of the soft mushy bits on the inside, those have always been a different story. But while the shell might be marred for a moment, over time, those scars, those scratches, those bruises, those burns would heal and eventually disappear, like I had never been harmed at all. 

And then I had the Supergirl. 

For the longest time, the incision from her birth was a symbol, a numbed reminder that I didn't try hard enough, that I didn't meet my own expectations and the expectations of so many others when it came to bringing her in this world. That for all my talk of natural birth and the lack of drugs, when it came down to being able to do what I had talked smack about for months - I failed, I gave in at the first suggestion that they do the C-section, didn't even fight anymore when they said it was just time to be done with it and get her out. 

And so I hated that incision, was shamed at the scar that it left behind, for all that I felt that it symbolized, for all of the guilt and shame that I thought it represented. I bought the guilt, I devoured the shame, I let it eat at me, making me feel like less of a mother, less of a person, less of a woman. 

And then, while laying on the bed in the early morning hours talking softly to my girl, she lifts my shirt to give me a raspberry on my stomach when the small, smooth, shiny scar catches her eye. "Momma, what happened here?"

"That is where you came out of my tummy, " I respond and she lights up. She lays her head on my belly and strokes that place, that small scar just south of belly button, that is just starting to feel again, with wonderment and excitement. 

"It's so beautiful, momma. It's just so beautiful."

And I try not to cry.