Dear Scar...

I so hoped you were not permanent, but I am 63 and you are still here. Not only are you extant, but you continue to throb. I am giving up. No longer will I try to erase you. I hereby surrender.

I don’t even know exactly where you reside. Deep inside for sure. I believe I was born with you.

The crazy thing is people can see you even though I cannot. I feel your reverberations through my being, and they play out in social anxiety, sometimes camouflaged by bravado or what may appear a superior attitude.

I have my share of scars that will never leave the body, but you, original cicatrix, will endure to the other side.

You first made yourself known when I was 10. You made me think I was worthless and should kill myself. The psychiatrists my parents sent me to could not find you, did not eradicate you. You were already an inseparable part of my being.

I have been blessed with opportunities. I have traveled, earned degrees, never lacked for work (sometimes created my own). I have found inspiration and connection, experienced joy; but scar, you never fail to make me second guess my intuition. It takes a supreme and focused effort to bypass the devilish tricks you play.

You have twisted my mind so it tells me lies. On difficult days, you color my perception and all my interactions. You scramble the part of me that knows I’m whole and human. You create a chasm I must traverse to enter the world, to reach other beings who can clearly see something is not right; I know they can.

Your presence in my psyche can fill me with a fear approaching panic. You stripped me of confidence when I was young. I became promiscuous, trying to fill the void with the adoration of men – low-hanging, damaging fruit for a young woman. It did not make me feel whole, but that did not stop me from trying.

The therapist who coached me through my second divorce told me my picker was broken. I am inclined to disagree. Both my exes are flawed yet beautiful men, and because of you, cicatrix, I was unable to love them as they needed to be loved.

Husband number one, father of my son, Cajun from New Orleans, brilliant bacchanalian converted to much-loved AA speaker, former bartending star to talented therapist. Our crazy in-loveness turned into parenthood, quickly followed by reality - not enough money, sleep, patience, or meeting of needs - till one day he told me it made him sick to consider sex with me. Ouch.

Husband number two, fascinating renaissance man from Mexico I met dancing at Café Brasil, became my media naranja then business partner, and even after three separations and a divorce we love each other; but now he has another woman, someone with whom he says his love has reached a new dimension. Another ouch.

Scar, you flexed your power searing those painful comments into my brain. I work and work and work to live a normal life, find love again, enjoy my friends and family, but sometimes scar, you make me bitter, and the fear returns in spades.

You are intrinsic - cutting you out equals self-destruction. I understand now that peace can be achieved when I accept your presence, feel my pain and fear, and let it go; learn to have compassion for my wound.

In this way cicatrix, you will ease your grip on me. We will co-exist and I will let go of despair.

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