Scars

"Scars remind us where we've been. They don't have to dictate where we're going."
- Criminal Minds


I've been thinking a lot about scars, recently. Emotional and physical-- I have them both. My son is going to look at me one day, sweet and innocent and simply not knowing how the world can be and will ask me "Mommy, why are your arms hurt? Where did those scars come from?" 


I'll have to answer him, because I can't keep that huge chapter of my life from my child. It wouldn't be right. I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to say-- and I know that I have years to think about it -- but this is the gist of what I've come up with for now:


"When I was a teenager, things were very, very difficult for myself and your grandma. Grandma had some problems that she's taken care of now-- remember how we celebrate two birthdays for grandma every year? It's because we're celebrating her getting through all of those bad, hard things. But because those things happened, mommy got hurt. At first, it was just hurting on the inside, but I didn't have anyone to talk to about what hurt so badly, so I found a different way to handle it. Instead of talking to a grown-up, I hurt myself very badly and had to go to a special hospital for a long time. 


Nobody was mad at me for doing it. Everyone was very, very sad in fact. But because I tried to hurt myself so badly, I have these marks/scars. Now, I talk to daddy or auntie when I feel that badly, so that I don't feel like I have to do something like that again. Nobody gets upset when I talk to them about how I'm feeling, they always help and they never tell me I'm being bad for thinking that way, and no one in this family will EVER be mad at you if you need to talk to them about how you're feeling."


I realize, too, that I'm going to have to explain my emotional scars sooner. I wake up screaming from nightmares and flashbacks. One day, I'm going to have to tell my baby that the monsters that mommy thinks she sees at night aren't real anymore, but sometimes, they seem very, very real and when mommy's dreaming, her brain doesn't know that they aren't. 


I'm honestly very scared to explain that one to my child. When he's older and able to understand what "a bad man hurt mommy" means, I'll tell him the full story. As it is, I intend on telling him about his two siblings who are looking out for him from heaven-- and I intend on telling him that his daddy is not daddy for both of them. I'm also going to tell him-- I'm going to be so sure to tell him -- that even though a bad, bad person was #1's father, that I now love that little angel as much as I love Dahlia, and I talk to him/her just like I do his sister. 


Physical scars are a book that others can look at and try to read. Emotional scars are the drawings in the margin that only *you* know what they are. 


- Loki