Facing Up To It
I sustained very bad injuries to my face this month. I’m in the stage of healing where the scar tissue has formed, but it’s still very tender “new skin.” I’m going to have very obvious facial scarring for the rest of my life. The injury starts about an inch above my hairline, goes down over my brow. Wherever it touches, hair will not grow. It continues down my cheek where it is deepest.
I’ll always probably have an indentation in the fullest part of my cheek. Then it continues to my jawline. In some ways it’s OK. I’m happy it’s just cosmetic damage. My friends are super reassuring, telling me how sick it’s gonna look. They say I’m still as hot as ever, now a little more sexy and mysterious, hah. But in some ways it really sucks.
I know that I’m always gonna be seen first as “the girl with the scar” and it feels especially bad when people look at me differently. This week, I had to fly home for a family thing; it was a plan I’d made long before my injury. I wasn’t really looking forward to the pity or people making a big deal of it. I’d rather it not be acknowledged.
I’d also met with my dermatologist who said that I was at the stage of scar tissue formation that I no longer should be dressing the wounds. The skin was healing and instead I needed to be applying topical cream and Vaseline to keep the site clean and moist. It also looks a bit ugly; the building scar tissue is very red and tender, and with the Vaseline over it, looks slick and shiny.
So I get on this flight. I have the window seat and I put on my headphones and drift off to sleep when the plane is still boarding. It went more horrible than my worst nightmare. I wake up to this kid, maybe four years old, sat next to me and throwing a tantrum. I didn’t catch the first part of it and I honestly couldn’t understand what he was yelling about.
Then his father said to me, “Can you cover that injury?” I said that my dermatologist recommends I don’t, so no I don’t think I will. He started snapping at me saying “There is no need to be so rude. That injury is scaring my little one.” I said, “This is my face. The only face I’ve got. It sucks being told I’m so ugly I can’t show my face in public.”
He started to backtrack saying, “just until it’s healed,” and I said, “It’ll always be with me. Maybe teach some compassion and respect instead of telling a girl half your age what you think about her face. That’s rude.” He actually got up after that and I think he went to see the stewardess about a seat change because a young couple came to sit next to me instead.
I felt so low that I put on my sunglasses and had a quiet cry for a few minutes.