"Is that a tattoo I saw when your shirt raised up?" one of my new friends asked me during our softball game. When I answered no, she added, "Oh, I was thinking maybe you had a wild side we don't know about." I squinted briefly at her, shaking off the tiny questions that fluttered and glistened like soap bubbles all around my head..."What was she looking for?" I wondered. "Why would it matter if I have tattoos?" Only later did it occur to me that what she had probably been seeing were the scars from the fibroid myomectomy I had in 2005. I don't have a tattoo but there have been times I've considered getting one.
Her curiosity and search for my wild side is understandable. It's only human to look at someone we like and admire and to make comparisons. Recently I wrote a post called "Independence Day". I've said before that all of my posts write themselves and that one was no exception. It strained to get out of me like a child and I couldn't understand why it begged to be written so badly. After it was created I felt bad about what I had written about my friend so I took it down and buried it in my drafts folder. Then tonight it occurred to me why it needed to be written. For years somewhere deep down in the recesses of my mind I have been chiding myself for not being more competitive professionally like my friend. And then when I found out her life hadn't turned out so well after all and I wrote this post it came across like I was gloating, or worse yet, revelling in the failings of my friend. But I was doing neither. I was only being human.
Any success I have is God's,
my failures only, belong to me
There's no need to search for scars
I have plenty
though they may give you comfort to see
and I don't blame you if you do
after all you're human too
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