Scars

I have some in my body, remembrances of my mortality, of  my imperfections. Human imperfections, better said, since the wounds inflicted to our bodies heal, tissues recover, but not completely. Warning signs, that´s what scars are, just like those we see on the side of the roads: do not exceed the speed limit, do not pass, keep your right, keep your left. It´s the way nature found to warn us not to exceed our limits, to be more cautious the next time. 

So I have scars, it´s almost impossible to go through life without gaining some during childhood. From that period, I have one on the sole of my foot. It was caused by a huge nail that pierced my skin as I step on it. Frighthening experience from which I have very imprecise memories.  

Others were caused by medical interventions. Two C-sections brought my daughters into this world, so I am very proud of having that one (the incisions were made at the same spot twice, resulting in a single scar). Another two were the resulst of a plastic surgery. Was it worth it? I don´t know. All I can say is that it was an interesting experience to lose consciousness  and step into a condition of temporary non-existence, and then return to life with the realization that only the living could suffer from such an excrutiating pain.

I have other scars as well. They look and feel ugly to me, but are not exactly visible to others. Results of difficult healing processes, deep wounds caused by disappointments, and that is also something we cannot completely avoid during our lives; we suffer and cause suffering. Sometimes accidentally, unintentionally, sometimes with the deliberate intention of hurting as deep as possible.

And there are the scars we choose to have. Signs that only make sense to ourselves. Permanent inasmuch as life can be considered perpetual. So I added two more signs to the map of my skin. I tattoed two letters on my wrists: an A, the first letter of the alphabet, the inicial of my name on the left, and the Z on the right. There are many reasons why I´ve chosen to have those letters, but the main one is that I didn´t want to forget what they meant to me. Letters are my great companions, my partners in creating words that put together give birth to paragraphs, and then to full texts. And I just realized now that our DNAs are represented as sequences of letters. So that´s it. What we are, what I am, at the end:  a sequences of letters.