It’s just a four letter word, but so deep with memories rooted in it. A scar is often defined as:
a mark left on the skin or within body tissue where a wound, burn, or sore has not healed completely and fibrous connective tissue has developed.
A scar simply put to me is that part which hasn’t completely healed, at least that is what I get from the definition. Healing is needed from pain or hurtful situations. I don’t recall anyone having to heal from happiness or healthiness.
People have scars for different reasons. In some places like Africa, especially West Africa, people wear scars(though scarification is dying down) for pride, identification of a rank in society, tribe one belonged to mainly for men. The women wore scars for the number of children they’ve had, displaying their strength in the survival of childbirth which was quite painful back then. The process of scarification is a thoroughly painful one using objects such as broken glass, reason why the scarred tissue is often thick and very visible.
In the Asian world, scars on people stand for mistakes, abominations, people who shouldn’t be in society. If they are not shunned they are feared. One’s body is not an object for kintsugi or patching up. Such people turned out to become what society expected of them, nightmares and instigators of fear as they were tagged.
Regardless how you got scarred, you can choose to wear it as an issue of pride or one for fear. How your surroundings feel about it shouldn’t dictate how you feel about it, only you have such influence in your life and over your body. Don’t despair, scars also heal and disappear leaving no trace behind. You are not healed, until the scar is gone, you just feel better in your body act better and live better. But in so far as your eyes look at that mark, you remember. You can choose to wear the scar or work on letting it heal. The choice always is yours.
