My daily routine starts at night. Every night I shower and am reintroduced to my body. I review how it looks and examine it for imperfections. Usually the surprises aren’t terribly much. I often find a random bruise or a black hair on my arms or legs. Last night there was a mosquito bite on my shin. Nothing was quite so shocking as the day I saw it. The pooch. The damn married-body-pooch. And then I noticed more. The love handles, the dark stretch marks on my thighs, and is that another chin forming? I can’t help, but think: Seriously? I haven’t even been married two years! We haven’t had kids! Where the hell did you come from? This whole thing is silly, really. I mean, I am no different from any other newly married woman. But I am also no different from every other woman who has been concerned about her appearance. There is, however, at least one way in which I am different. Let me let you in on a little secret… I guess I can’t really call it a secret. I mean, it is as plain as the nose on my face. It is also, literally, on my face. * * * * * * * * * * * It started with a nine-year-old me cracking the door to my parent’s bedroom. I was hot and sweaty, still breathing hard from whatever game my brother and I had come up with under the August sun. My mom was taking a light nap, still fully dressed beneath the sheets. Next to her on my dad’s side of the bed was Luke. Luke was a full-grown Great Pyrenees. A beautiful dog who always looked just a little like a Labrador to me, but pure white and much, much bigger. Standing on his hind legs he was over two feet taller than myself and easily 50 pounds heavier, but he was the sweetest dog I’d ever known. Luke often slept on my dad’s side of the bed while he was at work. I pushed the door wide open and entered the room and plopped down next to Luke. “Mom…” I whispered. She said something unintelligible and I began chattering. I don’t even remember what about. I was just chatting away as kids do and playing with Luke while he slept. Touching his ears, stroking his brow bones, lifting his lips and looking at his gums. His head was almost the size of my torso. “Luke, we should have Daddy brush your teeth again! They’re so gross!” Luke made an odd sound, something quiet, but deep. I laughed out loud and my mom rolled over, her eyes barely open. “What was that, Luke? Was that a snore?” I grabbed his snout and rubbed my hands all over his face.” That’s so cute! You’re snorin—“ I knew it was going to happen. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. It felt surreal and all was silent as my body instinctively reacted to Luke’s sudden movement. He was up and lunging for my face. I felt the muscles in my back tighten as I lifted myself away from him. My eyes began to shut instinctively, but before they did I saw Luke’s mouth, jaws parted and his lips curled enough to allow me to see every single one of his teeth. All was dark as my eyes shut tight and he bit me. Some instinctual power hunched my back and brought my hands into a cupped shape at my chin. I didn’t hurt at all, couldn’t feel a thing. I was fine. So can you imagine my surprise when I opened my eyes, peered into my cupped hands, and saw a drop of blood. No, droplets of blood. No. My hands were full of blood. My first thought? Oh shoot! NotthecarpetNotthecarpetNotthecarpet!!! And I was scurrying to my mother’s bathroom. I hadn’t taken my eyes off my hands until I got to the sink, where I released the handful of my blood and turned on the water. Something told me not to look in the mirror for fear of getting blood in my eyes, but I looked anyway. The first thing I saw were my wide, green eyes, surprisingly not filled with blood. But an inch from my hairline, smack in the center of my forehead, was a blood-red waterfall. I had read in many books the phrase: “They grew pale as the blood drained from their face.” I didn’t know I would ever experience this so literally. Blood is beautiful. The color is rich and intriguing. You rarely see the color of fresh blood so I felt absolutely captivated by it as it rushed into the sink, mixing with the water. This was me. All that made up me, swirling down the drain. It’s an incredible experience, watching your life-blood flow down the drain. I began to feel something then. A line of warmth creeping down my face I had not noticed my mom was in the bathroom with me, but mom was there and she had a wash cloth over my eyes before I could voice just how incredible this was. I never did tell her. And in a way, I regret that. Maybe she wouldn’t have been so hard on herself after all this. The next few minutes were a flurry as I tried to follow Mom around the house. She shoved the dog out, threw on some shoes, and called my Dad, but the cloth kept me from seeing anything. Suddenly, Mom was leading me out to the car and trying to switch out my wash cloth for a new one, dripping with icy water. I vaguely remember being admitted to the ER at the hospital up the street from my neighborhood. My Aunt Denise had come to take my little brother for the night, but she wanted to see the damage. As I lay down, she lifted the wash cloth from my face and her eyes were focused, unchanging, and serious. A good sign, I thought! But with the cloth lifted from my eyes I could see my mom over Denise’s shoulder—eyes wide, pupils dilated, and her face was even more white than the hospital lights above me. And then the cloth was replaced, rendering me blind once again. I don’t know how long I lay on that table, or counter, or whatever. I just know Mom was royally peeved when this lady in green scrubs came in and offered us a pack of gauze before ushering us out of the building. “They’re not going to help?” I asked as we made our way out to the car, Mom’s hands holding the gauze to my face. Though I didn’t know it at the time, the hospital turned us away because of my age. They did not feel they could patch up a child’s face without risking a lawsuit. Frankly, I’m glad they turned us away. This was my face we were talking about… But months later we would get the bill from this hospital—a $175 admittance fee and an additional $50 for a single pack of gauze. Bastards. Primary Children’s Hospital was way better! Oh, so much better! There was a fish tank, with glimmering, striped fish, kids’ magazines scattered everywhere, and a cartoon playing on a little TV in the corner of the room. My mom had been on the phone with my dad the whole 50-minute drive up to this hospital and he arrived not long after we did. He sat in the uncomfortable hospital chair and pulled me close, lightly lifting the blood-soaked gauze from my face. Behind him, a mother with her little boy looked at me and her eyes grew wide. Was it really that bad? As we waited to be admitted, family members poured into the emergency room, providing words of love and comfort. Most everyone was proud of how well I was doing. Looking back, the words were probably more for my mom. This day would haunt her much longer than I thought it should. At some point I was admitted, weighed, tagged, and gowned. The Doctor came to find me and at last we came to the room. The one where my face would be made whole again. It was small and had a little vanity like most doctor’s offices have, with the glass canisters on the counter. There was a piece of terrible art—some pixelated, blurry painting of a prairie—hanging as well, behind the chairs my parents sat in. The Doctor lowered the gurney almost to the floor and rolled a stool over to my side. Hanging above me he kept on chatting as he put on new gloves, covered his hair, pulled on his surgical mask. “This will sting a little. Be brave, okay?” he said as he took a syringe of lidocaine and numbed everything from my hairline straight down to the tip of my nose. A drop rolled into my eye and it wasn’t long before it was swelling shut. But the man worked some magic! We talked about my cats as he gently tugged and pulled, sewing 60 stitches into my tiny little face. He finished up the job by taping over the stitches and explaining what we should be watching out for. “…pus, blood, popped stitches…” It was a really, really long list. But I was better! I was whole again. I did not have a single thought for my appearance either. Four days later I would be a swollen, puffy mess at my tenth birthday dinner. It was pretty fantastic birthday! Mom and Dad were going for something special, I guess, with all the presents. As per tradition I would choose where we would eat for my birthday dinner, and my parents were utterly shocked when I asked to go to Olive Garden. I received many odd looks that night. Looks of pity, shock, concern… And that was just the start. As I began to heal I found I had two, dark lines on my face. One starting at about my hairline and ending where one eyebrow began. The other started where the other eyebrow began and traced down the side of my nose. Not the prettiest sight, but I had no problems with them at all! They weren’t much different from the scrapes on my knees. In fact, they were cooler. My parents feared for my self-confidence and were especially concerned about how my peers would see me. They didn’t need to worry though. The first kid to call me “Scar-face” was the last. I rammed my foot into those tiny, fifth grade testicles so fast! Who was he to call me names? My mom told me how beautiful and strong I was, showering me with gifts and pretty things to help me shine. She also found a woman who had been attacked by a dog as a child and had to have her chin and bottom lip sewed back on, thinking this would boost my self-esteem. Well, tell you what—I felt pretty grateful then! There was a time, a few months later, where my mom and I were driving in the car and she told me I was so incredibly beautiful to her. At the time I wasn’t very appreciative, but looking back I owe what confidence I do have to her. As I grew older the scars faded away and I entered high school with the long, brown hair and petite body. Boys didn’t seem to notice the battleground that had been my face. Not that I minded! But how was I so beautiful then, and not now? * * * * * * * * * * * It’s hard having gained 30 pounds since being married. Somehow weight and shape are different from a scar. Scars are permanent and tell an epic poem on one’s skin. But what does excess weight communicate to the world? That is what scares me the most. My husband tells me often that he loves me, love handles and all. But I cannot help remembering the night he told me he was so grateful to not be marrying a fat girl. Back then I called him shallow and accepted the compliment. But what am I to do with those words now? He has not uttered them since, but once sweet and flattering words are now poison, eating away at my self-esteem. In this search for confidence, I’m left staring at the mirror, torn between the pride of my battle scars and disappointment in my figure. I find myself examining my scars, yearning to learn the secrets my childhood-self understood so clearly. What is “beauty?” How is “beauty” obtained? I suspect, through optimism and a great deal of hard work. If “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” how does a girl change her perspective? Clearly, I’m struggling with this now, and I hate that I didn’t struggle before. I guess sometimes you just have to look in the mirror and learn to love yourself.