My Precious Scars

For lack of a better, more all-encompassing word, I suppose you could call me a klutz. I have memorized the symptoms of a concussion, which let me tell you, is a lot more impressive if you know how many concussions I’ve had. I can easily tell you what pain medications you can and cannot combine, to the point that I’ve had friends shoot me a text to make sure they’re safe to overlap tylenol and motrin. My phone now automatically joins every urgent care wifi network in the greater Lansing area, and I have enough splints and braces piled up to last a lifetime, despite the fact that literally a year and a half ago I tossed out over 50% of the collection I had. And just like the crotchety old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn in a movie, I can tell you if it’s going to rain without fail thanks to at least seven different aching spots on my person at any given time. I’ve joked that I’m trying to get exposed to enough radiation to develop superpowers, because how cool would invisibility be, right? Or that I’m just trying to become the strongest (what doesn’t kill you is supposed to make you stronger, according to Kanye West and Kelly Clarkson), and that my “bad” luck of being accident prone actually just means that I have the really really good luck of, you know, still being alive.

From falling down stairs to trying and failing to do a flip as part of the choreography for a dance scene in the fall musical back in high school (yes, I seriously broke my clavicle and gave myself a pretty nasty concussion during theatre rehearsal), I’ve managed to get injured in a pretty impressive variety of ways. However, my ability to heal continues to amaze me, and very few of those injuries have left an obvious mark. Sure, I can feel the weakness in the ankles I’ve broken and sprained, and I grit through the tenderness of aching bones when the weather changes. I feel the story of all my body has recovered from every day, but I am beyond blessed to have thus far escaped permanent damage. I am, for the most part, completely able bodied, and I am thankful that I’ve mostly walked away from my misadventures with little more than an embarrassing (but usually also pretty interesting) story.

Obviously not every cut and bruise I’ve ever gotten has deeply influenced my story, but some of the injuries I’ve faced have significantly impacted my life, and have become a part of my history. Some of those injuries came with emotional damage that lasted much longer than the physical damage. Some of them tested me, and taught me to fight for my recovery in a way that has changed how I live to this day. I’ve learned to be aware of possible dangers in my surroundings. I’ve learned to trust my instincts when they’re telling me not to attempt something (like doing a flip without a mat, for example). I’ve learned to always, always, always protect my head. And it somehow seems wrong to know what I know, to feel what I feel, and have nothing to commemorate all I have learned and survived.

I was thinking about that a few years ago, with my wrist safely encased in a fracture splint thanks to an unseen patch of ice, when I came across the concept of kintsugi: the Japanese practice of repairing breaks in pottery with gold. This method of repair focuses on highlighting the history of the object rather than hiding the break or imperfection, and that really struck a chord with me.

What if I applied that same idea to myself? Rather than being ashamed of my clumsiness, or allowing what I’ve been taught to fade with the scars, what if I celebrated what I’ve learned, highlighted the parts of me that have been hurt and then healed? What if I marked each spot with a symbol or message of positivity and hope for myself? Maybe I could change my thinking and actually embrace what I’ve joked about for so long: that I really am truly lucky to be alive.

The easiest way to achieve that, I realized, would be to get tattoos over all the places that I’ve injured. Now the problem with that is twofold, see, because 1) tattooing has always been something that fascinated and terrified me in equal measure, and 2) I have been injured a lot, so we would be talking about quite a few tattoos. The more I thought about it the more the voices of so many tattoo skeptics kept ringing in my ears with concerns like “what will that look like when your skin is saggy and wrinkled?”, “who will employ you if you have visible tattoos?”, and of course, “you know that’s a lot of pain for something you might regret, right?” And then my own concerns would creep in, like “what if you get one and realize you hate it?” and “what if it hurts and you flinch and ruin the whole thing and you still have to pay for it and live with it forever?” But in the end, it was a combination of encouragement from a friend, a darn good sale, and an excellent cause that is near and dear to my heart that got me to set aside those fears and take the plunge.

In September, 2018 Ink Therapy Lansing teamed up with Lansing Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention for a special tattooing event in which customers could walk in, select a pre-created tattoo featuring the semicolon (a symbol of solidarity between people struggling with mental illness and used as inspiration to carry on for those struggling with thoughts of suicide), get inked for just $15, and 10% of the proceeds would go toward suicide prevention and awareness. Honestly, I don’t think I could have asked for a better first tattoo in my soon-to-be series of kintsugi inspired ink, so with a healthy dose of enthusiastic motivation from my amazing roommate, I went in, picked out a design, and got my first tattoo.

It’s nothing big, just a small heart with a semicolon placed on the outside of my left ankle (the first ankle I broke, though sadly not the last), but to me, it means the world. Every day I see that tattoo and I remember the strength it took to heal that wound. I remember the strain of physical therapy. I remember the pain of stretching and the frigid ache from icing. I remember the frustration of having to constantly be careful with myself while I healed. I remember how easy it was to let sadeness creep in, and how my pesky self-doubt was suddenly on a hair-trigger, ready to try to drag me under with every setback. But most of all, I remember that I came out the other side. I healed and I grew, and I learned lessons about myself that have stayed with me to this day. And sure, maybe I would still remember all those things without that little patch of ink, but to me getting that tattoo was a way of claiming those memories as part of my story, and writing that story unashamedly on my skin. I haven’t gotten another tattoo since then, but I know that I will. After all, every day that semicolon in a heart reminds me that my story is not over, and there is so much of it left for me to tell.