Vanity, Scars, and Survival

Covered in Scars

For years, I felt like I was hiding in plain sight—ashamed, feeling ugly, and covered in the scars that told stories I didn’t want to share. My body looked like a map of backroads leading to everywhere and nowhere. Each mark was a reminder of trauma, surgeries, and survival, and I couldn’t see beauty in any of it.

The Raw Truth

There’s a part of me that, to this day, cannot fully accept the ugly. A piece of me still rails against the losses—the ones that reshaped me physically and shattered me emotionally. I haven’t looked in a full-length mirror since 1976, the day I first saw the massive hole in my leg. I was 20, and for five weeks, I didn’t even know I had lost part of it. When I saw the damage, it felt like a cruel joke. In true me fashion, like after Andrea's death, when I reverted to about twelve years old, I left the scene. This time, I spiked a high fever and became delirious. For three days. I was still in hospital, at the time. I didn’t just lose part of my body that day—I lost a part of myself.

I was young. I was vain. I believed my worth was tied to what I saw in that mirror. Vanity has been my greatest flaw, and as I’ve said before, vanity killed me thrice—twice in body and again in spirit.

2016: Kintsugi Changed Everything Then I discovered Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. Instead of hiding the cracks, they are honored as part of the object’s history—filled with gold veins, turning brokenness into beauty. That philosophy shifted my perspective. My scars became my life experience marks. Instead of disguising or despising them, I began to see them as my golden seams—proof of where I broke, where I healed, and where I grew stronger.

2019: I Am FLAWSOM I no longer aim for perfection. I claim my flaws because they are part of what makes me awesome. I call myself FLAWSOM—no “E,” on purpose (you’ll have to read Pink Goldfish for that secret thanks to Stan Phelps and David Rendall ).

And here’s the best part: I’m bionic. How freakin’ cool is that? @TheDarkPollyanna