Blast From The Past – Women, Their Bodies, Wrinkles and Scars…

Nothing throws me off more than listening to two gorgeous young women talking about body issues. Listening to them talk about the faults in their bodies, the ugly bits and pieces and what they would love to have changed. It makes me sad.

Today I overheard two young women talk about all the things they thought were wrong. And funny enough for some reason the post I’m about to share as Blast Of The Past had a bit of traffic suddenly again today too. Coincidence? Maybe… but maybe also a reminder for all of us to not judge ourselves too harshly…

We all know how much most of us struggle with parts of our bodies. There are wrinkles, weight gain, stretch marks, cellulite and pimples that need to be fought. Or at least we think so.

For years now the beauty industry has done an amazing job telling us women that we need to keep looking like a 20 year old. That wrinkles, stretch marks and all the other nice little come-alongs are pure evil.

Never do we hear that they tell a story. Never to we get to hear that they are part of us and that life can be totally fine with them. Never are we assured that men will love us and find us attractive even with all those little lines. Yes, it happens! More than you think! Because men are not as superficial either. At least most of them. They see us too. The true us. Not the photoshop-ed one if we let them.

So while we struggle with wrinkles that come with age, stretch marks that come with childbirth (or maybe also with weight gain and weight loss) and cellulite that might or might not appear, there is another evil enemy lurking in our life. Scars!

They appear in many shapes and sizes. They can be tiny little scars from skin issues to scratches, to cuts. They can be the sign of an adventure gone wrong as a child, a left over from a silly stunt as a teenager or the reminder of pain and sorrow. We all carry them. In different forms, with different stories they tell, different memories.

Scars, like wrinkles and stretch marks, tell a story. They tell our story. Maybe they tell a story about pain, fear and tears. But they also tell another story. They tell a story of survival and of strength. They tell a story of someone who is still here, no matter what that person has encountered in the past.

Stories like the one of the girl in my school who got pushed by her aggressive back then boyfriend. The girl who used to model. The girl with the perfect face. Pushed into a glass door. And she went right through it. It could have killed her. But it didn’t her injuries were not life threatening. But the glass left a huge cut all over one side of her face. Right then and there a big part of her life changed. She was no longer “perfect”. She no longer had the faultless features. And yet she was still stunning. She was still the same person, but with an experience that hopefully made her stronger from then on.

Or like the one of the little girl who fell out of her bed and onto a toy with her knee, ending up with a hole in it and needing stitches. A brave little girl, now happy to tell the story of how brave she was while in “recovery”.

I have some scars on my body. Tiny little scars. They tell a story. Like the one on my chin I got from my brother when I was a little kit. From when he hit me with his little Matchbox car… Like the one I got from falling on an ice-skate blade. All of my scars’ stories are too trivial to be told. They don’t tell stories of survival and strength. They are not out in the open and therefor I don’t know how it must feel to suddenly have to deal with one that stands out.

And that brings me to another point: Isn’t it crazy to what extreme we allow our surroundings to get to us? How much we care about what others think? How much our looks define us? How much we worry that we are not good enough, not pretty enough?

While scars on a woman might be seen as imperfection, scars on a men might be seen as signs of a a battle, maybe of bravery but often they might also be seen as a sign of a fight, of aggression. When we look at people and judge we usually don’t judge in a nice way. Right? Just think about it!

When we judge we usually judge in a negative way. Let’s take the example of a guy. A guy in shape. A guy with a big scar on his face. If you are slightly judgmental you will think about why he got this scar. You might think of a fight. What if he really got it in a fight but he was a victim? What if he got it in a fight he never wanted to be in? And what if he got it rescuing someone? What if he got it saving someone’s life?

Now what about the scars you will never get to see? The scars words can leave? The scars abuse can leave? The scars of our soul? Scars that come from flesh wounds are visible, the wounds our souls got are not. What they have in common is that over time both of them might fade but will never go away entirely.

… or queens. Never forget queens!

Inspired by the Daily Post Daily Prompt – Scars