We’re driving on the dirt road to our favorite camping spot. The weather is warm enough that I can have the window down and not get cold. That’s my favorite. I love fresh mountain air, and I hate being cold. It hurts my body to be cold. I put my hand out of the window and see the beautiful pine trees and aspens. Oh, I love this place! It fills my soul with peace.
I reflect on all that I have to be grateful for—
- My husband and my hero, Brandon
- Our boys, Leo and Talon
- We have a nice comfortable trailer that Brandon fixed up for us
- We have time to go camping together
- I’m healthy enough to go with them
- The sun is shining…
Life is good. With all its trials lately, life is still good!
My eyes focus on my face in the side mirror of the truck. I’m 36 years old now. How did that happen? Do I look 36? I’ve always looked younger than my age. I wonder if that’s still true. I have my long brownish-red hair in a braid. I was born with blonde hair, which turned brown in adolescence. Then, in my 20s, it started to get auburn highlights. Random strangers will sometimes comment on me being a redhead, and I’m always taken aback. I wouldn’t say that I have red hair, but in the sun, it definitely has auburn in it.
I start to critique my reflection. I notice my big forehead, which my four sisters always make fun of. I smile at the memories. We are brutal about each other’s insecurities. I’m getting more pronounced crow’s feet by my eyes; I wonder if that should bother me? I see so many girls being worried about wrinkles that I’m tempted to jump on the band wagon. But honestly, I have enough to worry about with my body. Wrinkles are the least of my worries.
I’ve always had thick eyebrows. Luckily, it’s “in” to have thicker eyebrows. I started plucking my uni-brow in grade school, for heaven’s sake. I’m glad that my eyebrow maintenance takes less time these days. I have blue eyes and long eyelashes. Two of my sisters got naturally long, curly eyelashes. Mine are annoyingly straight.
My nose is a little crooked. If I look up slightly, it’s more noticeable. When I was in elementary school, I used to push on the tip of my nose, thinking I could make it less crooked and pointy.
My teeth were straight at one time, but my front bottom teeth have gone a little crooked. I have one front tooth that is starting to turn slightly yellow. When I was eight years old, I was trying to do a back flip on a swing and accidentally kneed myself in the mouth. My tooth cut my knee open, and my knee knocked my tooth way back. My dad had to trick me and pull my tooth back into place. My knee still has an oddly shaped heart scar, and my tooth is slowly dying.
I have acne scarring on both cheeks. I wish so badly that I could make those disappear. I turn my head slightly to the left and look at the straight scar, about an inch long, on my right cheek. It was my first noticeable scar. My thoughts go back to the first time I remember studying myself in the mirror.
BIRTHMARK
When I was four or five years old, I was playing outside in the snow with my two older siblings. We were throwing snowballs at each other, and I got one in the face. My oldest brother, Jon, told me that I had some mud stuck on my face, so I went inside and looked in the mirror. Sure enough, there was a brown spot as big as a dime on my right cheek that wouldn’t come off, no matter how much I scrubbed! That was the first time I remember noticing that I looked a little different than other kids. I yelled for my mom to come help me. She came in, and I told her what happened. She cleaned the soap off my face and sat me on her lap. Then, she explained that I was born with a birthmark on my cheek. She also told me it was an angel’s kiss. I thought it must have been a boy angel because my birthmark was brown.
When I started school, kids would often ask what was on my cheek. I would get shy, mumble something about it being a birthmark or an angel’s kiss, and turn my face away, hoping they would just forget about me. I was always super embarrassed whenever my birthmark came up. Maybe I didn’t like the attention, or maybe I didn’t like my birthmark, but either way, I came to dislike the way I looked. As an adult, I can see that kids were just curious. As a kid, I was just embarrassed and wanted it to go away.
At the end of fifth grade, we lived in Mesquite, NV, and we were going to be moving to Hurricane, UT, that summer. I asked my parents if we could get my birthmark removed before I went to a new school. We had moved a few times previously, and it was not fun being the “new girl.” It was worse being the “new girl with a big brown mole on her face.” Adults and children would typically try to avoid looking at it, or they would ask about it. Both were equally embarrassing to me.
I don’t remember how much I had to ask or beg, but my mom took me to a dermatologist, and made an appointment to get it removed. I was so excited! I remember looking at my face in the side mirror of the van, just like I am right now, and imagining what I would look like without my birthmark. I had to have stitches for a few weeks and couldn’t participate in our end-of-the-year water day, but that was okay because I was finally going to be like everybody else. No one at my new school would even know that I was born with a birthmark.
After I had it removed, I remember looking in the side mirror of the van and liking that I looked like a normal kid. I gained a little confidence! I felt like I could look people in the eye and smile at them without fear of them zoning in on my birthmark.
It kind of makes me sad for that little girl. I wish I had been strong enough or confident enough to just own it. I wish I hadn’t cared what other people thought or said. I don’t regret getting my birthmark removed. Maybe that still makes me weak. But I feel like I have more empathy and compassion for others because of it.
“I love it up here!” Brandon says as he sticks his hand out the window too. He pulls me from my thoughts about my childhood.
“Mmm, me too,” I say as I look over at Brandon and think about the first time I saw him, around this time of year, 17 years ago. I had just graduated high school, turned 19, and was about to start college…
Build Mental Strength. Live Beyond Pain. 