a celebration of scars

Scar [skahr]: noun & verb. a mark left by a healed wound.

[photo found on this tumblr]

I have scars. We all have scars.

The most notable of mine, I suppose, is an inch-long pink gash on the right side of my stomach--it is both a physical flaw and a stamp of emotional stress.

This past September, I had to have skin surgery to remove a possibly cancerous freckle from my stomach. It was not the first time I'd undergone such a procedure and it's extremely probable that it won't be the last, but it is most visible and was the most painful. I could not laugh freely, or the stitches might have ripped. I couldn't exercise or stretch and dance was simply out of the question.

Also, the possibility of skin cancer had me properly terrified.

Thankfully, the test results came back negative and the scar has slowly lessened in severity, although it remains pink and a little lumpy and a healthy reminder--now whenever I'm stressed or scared, I run my thumb over the mark and realize that whatever I'm worried about isn't as terrible as I think it is. I lived through that scar, I can live through social troubles/homework/family issues and anything else life decides to throw at me.

Life wouldn't be interesting if we weren't scarred--we wouldn't be wise, because there wouldn't be any reminders of mistakes. We wouldn't be tough, because we wouldn't have endured the pain necessary to acquire a permeant scar. We wouldn't be helpful, because we wouldn't have had any past experiences to guide us in giving advice to friends (example: thanks to a little white line on one of my fingertips, I now know it is never a good idea to rip a pen out of someone's hand). We wouldn't understand that mistakes should be accepted, not agonized over. Scars help us comprehend that no one is perfect and that you are not perfect.

So don't hide your scars. Don't hate them. Embrace them. Celebrate them. As Robert H. Schuller said...

"Turn your scars into stars."

[Inspiration credit: this post from Hopeful Romantic]

adorable on etsy

A few days ago I was terribly bored, so I sauntered on over to Etsy to browse through various crafty and cutesy jewelery. Here are my findings...

Zombie Pin

Okay, so not technically called a zombie pin. Whatever. It's still pretty in a slightly morbid way and I'd love to pin this to a scarf or a vest (if I actually start wearing vests...)

Dorothy Locket

So cute :) I only own one locket and the hinge on it is broken, so I have to Scotch-tape it shut, thus defeating the purpose. Plus, I have this affinity with classic movies, and if Wizard of Oz doesn't count as a classic, I don't know what does...

Winnie-the-Pooh necklace

Ain't it pretty? I was literally raised on Winnie-the-Pooh cartoons and Instant Breakfast drink. This necklace takes me back to my preschool pretend days.

Love Song in a Bottle

I died when I saw this. My absolute favorite. "Yellow" by Coldplay is one of the best songs on my iPod and this bottle necklace is actually in my top ten list of Cutest Things I've Ever Seen (don't worry--that list will, in all likelihood, be posted soon, much to the chagrin of my friends)...I would buy it, but I'd feel a tad awkward buying a love song necklace for myself...it doesn't seem like the type of treat you buy yourself, but maybe I'm overthinking it.

Damn, I wish I were crafty. It'd be awesome to just create something as delicate and adorable as these...

where it's at (day 11)

Put your iPod on shuffle and write the first ten songs that pop up.

Easy enough. Lovelovelove my music, although since I'm into artists and bands few people have heard of, you probably don't love it as much. Give it a chance, though. Little-heard music is where it's at :)

1. Maybe by Ingrid Michaelson--it's crazy catchy and soothing, shown to me by a fellow music nerd with slightly different taste.
2. American Honey by Lady Antebellum...same deep soul country music that made them famous with "Need You Now". Literally sounds like musical honey.
3. Must Have Done Something Right by Relient K...that song you dance around your room to.
4. Capri by Colbie Caillat...one of my favorite lullabies.
5. Dragons by The Workday Release...silky voices and pretty lyrics. Gosh I love them
6. Over My Head (Cable Car) by The Fray...it's on the oldish side (relatively speaking) but I just love the chorus.
7. My First Kiss by 3OH!3 ft. Ke$ha...it's sososo catchy, albeit overplayed and generic.
8. I Just Can't Wait To Be King from The Lion King. Don't tell me you don't love this song.
9. Look After You by The Fray...one of my favorite love songs. Heartbreaking and soothing at the same time.
10. Should've Said No by T-Swift...the preamble to "Better Than Revenge".

Aaaannd scene. I'm off to finish shoveling. We're running out of places to put the damn snow.

heritage

My nana gave me my Claddagh ring when I was in the sixth grade. It is small and gold and remarkably like the one pictured above, only the features are much blurrier, due to the fact that I've worn my ring pretty much every single day since then. It's one of my most treasured possessions, and I literally go crazy whenever I lose it (which, compared to everything else I own, isn't actually all that often.) because my grandmother had it for years and years--it's far older than I am--and I would feel terrible if I was that one person who accidentally let a family ring get sucked down the kitchen sink or something.

I'm incredibly proud of my Irish heritage, and also proud to wear my grandmother's ring. She is an insanely tough woman, yet never fails to be generous and loving for more than three seconds. Her life has been littered with traumatic events but every time I see her she has a story and a smile and usually, a hot cup of tea (everybody says the Irish love their booze. Personally, I find the attraction to tea much stronger among my relatives).  I cherish my ring because it reminds me so much of her, and I want to keep it always to have as a souvenir when she's gone, because my nana is a person worth remembering.

I've made the recent decision to "retire" my beautiful little Claddagh on my sixteenth birthday, because if I keep wearing it, the features will be in jeopardy and the heart, hands and crown are the most important part, representing love, friendship and loyalty respectively. Oh, I'll get a new one, of course, and it'll become meaningful, just not quite as much. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep my nana's ring until I can pass it on. I've accepted the fact that my nana is going to die eventually, but for some reason, I cannot imagine her ring ceasing to exist.

PS. Don't make fun of the fact I call my grandmother "nana".

[photo from wikipedia]

lalalalipstick--a photo session

So you may remember from my 30 interesting facts post that I write on my mirrors with red lipstick. Today I picked new phrases to scrawl onto my mirrors with L'Oreal True Red, and felt inclined to test out Ari's that-would-be-cute-to-photograph theory. So I grabbed my mother's generic Nikon digital camera and the lipstick...

and my trusty old iPod...

and had a little photo sesh. I should have been doing homework, but procrastination got the best of me, as usual...hence, pictures of flashes and lalalalipstick :)

Line from Dollhouse by Priscilla Renea...great dance song

(raaandom)

this one's my favorite. Lyric from the song by Florence + The Machine. 

I took like twenty pictures, but these three are the best. Pitiful, I know, since the quality's terrible and they're just not good, period, but just something I thought I'd try out on a lazy Sunday night and take a break from the sometimes-stuffy and tad pompous posts that I've been writing lately.

Oh, right. New term starts tomorrow...it would probably be a good idea to look up my schedule now, wouldn't it? 

project 17

This is the first recreational reading I've done in awhile, thanks to the demands of accelerated English. My brother checked it out of the library and left it lying on the kitchen counter, so I picked it up out of boredom, paroused the description and brought it up to my room for some bedtime reading.

Worst idea of my life.

This book is absolutely t e r r i f y i n g.

Basically, it's six teenagers who all break into an abandoned mental asylum and film their experiences because one of them is trying to win a film contest to get out of having to spend his adult life slaving away at his parent's diner. I didn't particularly like the writing--I've grown tired of adults writing as teenagers, it's annoying and false and usually inaccurate--but it's just plain creepy.

I've never read anything that's scared me so much. It's a horror movie condensed onto paper, complete with messed up dolls and a dead girl's diary and a mysterious and reoccurring reference to--you guessed it--the number 17.

The ending is very anticlimactic and disappointing, and the beginning is slow...basically, the only decent part is when the characters are physically in the asylum.

I kid you not, I found myself holding my breath during the most intense moments. Perfect book to read aloud at a Halloween sleepover, worst book to read at one AM (I learned the hard way).

[photo from the author's website]

real & mine (day 10)

Discuss your first love and first kiss.

I'm really starting to hate my 30-day challenge, and I'm only day 10. Bad sign.

Ahem. Bear with me.

My first kiss was on a Tuesday last May in my cluttered basement. I was wearing a gray and purple shirt from one of my dance competitions and he was wearing a UMass flatbrim (weird, the things you remember, huh?) and I distinctly remember my hands shaking.

My first love happened this summer, with aforementioned UMass flatbrim boy. I've already discussed this--we stayed up until four am talking on the phone, he bought me lunch, he found my ring when I lost it at the beach and went ballistic, he texted me every singe day for six months, he called me beautiful and told me secrets and held my hand and yeah, I loved him.

And then there was the whole shenanigans (digression: lovelovelove the word shenanigans) of starting high school and having no classes together and the girl who lives half an hour away, resulting in the end of our relationship and a three-month long silent treatment from both parties.

However, I'm proud to say we're getting better at being friendly and social and such. Last night my friends and I had a little jam sesh by a backyard bonfire and then played Taboo ('nother digression: Taboo is the BEST game. Ever.) and he and I were both perfectly fine being around each other--we talked about music and the board game and I even hugged him when I left. As a person, I still care about him.

So, that's my first love. I'm doing my best not to harp on the whole ordeal...it's over, it happened, it's done, and like I've said, I do not regret loving him--it was worth it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes the story of my first love. I know it's not every exciting or fairytale-esque, but it was real and it was mine.