Scars

As I stood naked in front of a huge mirror, designed to make me look pretty, I saw myself as extremely ugly. The mirror stretched from floor to roof and covered an entire wall.

The lights, the matte black tile wall behind me, the heavy beige curtains with a pleasing golden sheen to them, the entire room was designed to accentuate curves and make one look richly beautiful.

I had just stepped out of a long and luxurious bath, marinating in a jacuzzi filled with fragrant bubbles and rose petals. The entire room was filled with the smell of roses and strawberries.

It was the most encouraging situation for beauty to embrace itself. Yet, as I let go off my bathrobe, and stood naked in front of that mirror, I saw my imperfections clearer than ever.

I was a rather plump teenager and had lost too much weight way too quickly in my early 20s. There were stretch marks running down my upper arms, and on my lower back and stomach.

My butt looked saggy and withered with stretch marks and loose skin, too. I felt this urgent need to cover such ugliness from the world.

Yet I could not stop staring. I couldn’t help zooming in on all the blackened spots on my legs that had developed from years of sports, and fights with my brothers, and falling down too much.

I then saw my knees and elbow, and how they were too dark to be a part of my body. I had a fair completion in places unexposed to heat and bruises.

My breasts, my stomach, my back and my thighs were cream. While my arms and legs from knee down were a darker shade of brown that felt alien.

I had lived out my entire childhood under the sun, and now my work entailed exposure to the scorching heat and sun on beaches and seas. The parts of my body unprotected by

clothes had taken a skin of their own that simply didn’t seem to belong to me. Add to this, a teenage filled with pimples and breakouts that left scars all over my face, and I was most palatially depressed by now.

I had a gala to attend. My company was throwing a benefit gala for the cause of saving sea turtles, and the event was one of great prestige.

It was a formal evening of wine and dance, and was to be attended by the who’s who of India and Thailand. The company had rented clothes for all their diving instructors and senior employees.

A wine-red backless dress waited for me on my bed. It lay carefully spread out on the cloudy blankets and cushions of the bed. Backless, with a long slit on the right side of the leg that went as high as the upper thigh. I looked at my back again. I looked at my upper thighs.

Slowly, with a heavy heart, I pulled out my makeup box. My entire identity and self confidence depended on that make up. I started applying the concealer and the foundation on my back, my thighs, my arms, my neck and my face.

After two whole layers of product, my marks had finally been concealed and I was ready to put on the dress and pretend that I wasn’t still thinking about those scars that I knew existed beneath all that makeup.

Two years later, as I stand at the deck of a ship, clad in a bottle green bikini, I cannot help think of that specific night of the gala. That was the lowest my self esteem had ever hit.

As the salty breeze of the sea brushed my face and lost itself in my thick and heavy curls, I thought of the long way that I had come from that particular evening. I still had all the stretch marks, and my skin still sagged from places because of an obese teenage.

Nevertheless, I loved the way my waist curved into a concave, and my hips widened like a convex. I loved the way my collar bone came out like two sharp razors, from the golden brown tan of my chest, and the way my long neck graciously met my chin and blended into my heart-shaped face.

I loved the way my slightly tanned cheeks turned a rose red when it was hot, and the way my face lit up when I smiled. I loved the little dimples that formed below the corners of my lips when I smiled wide, and the way my curls made me look a little wild.

I loved that one crooked teeth on the right side of my upper jaw that overlapped another teeth and could be seen jutting out a little every time my lips spread in an open mouthed smile or laughter.

I had taken two years learning to accept myself after I had spent the night after the Gala, crying myself to sleep because I had felt ugly all night, that evening. I had spent these two year shedding clothes. I compulsively kept my body covered as much as possible, even though my job as a scuba diver entailed a lot of time in swim suits. All my swim suits covered me from my elbows to the whole of my thighs.

But I now stood at a deck of a ship, clad in the sexiest of bikinis that were tied with perfect knots on the back of my neck, on my back, and on both sides of my lower waist. And it gave me immense pleasure to be brave enough to like myself in it.

I still had weaknesses. I still took extreme care that I wasn’t photographed in clothes that revealed my scars, and I made it a point to never have any of the pictures on any social media. I even forbade my friends to do so with my pictures.

I was still a long way from learning to accept the scars so very publicly. I was a long, LONG, way from not caring what people saw or thought. But I had learned to find myself beautiful, and that was something. It was the beginning of everything!