Getting Droopy

I have a slicing scar across my right knee. An old rugby injury. What a cliché, eh?

I was captain of the team and we were in Ohio, playing a team that I never dreamed my year and half old team would beat, but we were winning. So many of the women were rookies-- Some of them had never even seen a rugby match before playing in one. It's just a game with rules like others, but it's hard to play a game you've never even seen before. What's a ruck, maul, scrum down? Why do I have to address the ref as "sir"? What's a line out? Etc. But there we were, playing as a team on a late fall afternoon, the sky overcast and the air sharp, just as it should be for all good rugby matches. And then my knee broke. Really.

I dislocated my kneecap and broke it in three places. I tore my patello-femoral ligament right off. Stop reading now if you're going to be grossed out. It's a good thing we have kneecaps, because otherwise, our legs look really gross. When I looked down at my leg, I thought it was broken. There was no kneecap over the bones in my knees. My knee was bent. A teammate jogged up to me, took one look and gagged and ran away. Yeah. Thanks. I knew I had to make my leg straight, so I did and nearly passed out, but somehow that put the knee cap back in its proper place. Several guys from the Ohio men's side came out onto the pitch and looked at it. I thought for a brief minute that I just needed a little jog and I could play again. Then they stood me up and the pain flooded me so deeply, I did what any good rugger does in a situation like that: I called for a beer. Immediately.

By the next day, I couldn't walk on my leg at all. Partner stopped at a Meijers and bought me crutches so I could get out and use the bathroom and so we could eat breakfast, but mostly so we could eat breakfast. I had surgery the Friday before Thanksgiving-- a scope and some reconstruction. Three little scares triangulate around one big slice down my knee. After the surgery and in PT, doctors and therapist alike were concerned about how I'd react to the scar.

I fooled them all because I loved it. Still do. Just like I love the gash like scar on my left ankle from a bike accident as a kid. And some little scars just under my knuckles and my wrist bone from another bike accident where I flew over the handlebars of my ten speed bike. For awhile, a little piece of my lip was gone too, small enough that probably only I noticed it. I have a little white stripe on my ankle from shaving (yes, shaving) too fast one night as my friend Amy stood outside the shower, urging me to hurry up. Some scars are there from cooking.

There are lots of little marks on my body that I love because they tell some story about me. Not all scars have happy memories, some are painful, but the thing about scars is that they show how you've healed. How your body has knit itself back together. It's something you've survived.

For that reason, I can't quite connect with the body mania people seem to feel either during or post pregnancy. What I'd like for my body is to be able to do some of the things it did in the past with no problem. Climb up a tree lickity split. Do swimming races. Butterfly. And win. (Did I really race the 200m butterfly? I don't know if I could do a length now.) Move heavy furniture with no help. Be confident I could carry anything. Never worry about my fitness level. That's what I wouldn't mind having back, and there's a certain knowledge that different body than the one I have now would accompany it, but it's the doing I want to have back, not the body.

People keep telling me what my breasts will look like after this is all over. My stomach. My whatever. And I just think, I don't care. I don't care how my body will look because it will look that way because of what I got to do: have a child. It's a story that not every woman will be able to tell with her body. I know that it's a story my own partner would love to tell with her body, and I wish I could give that to her. (I'll give it to her the only way I know how, but sharing my body and experience with her, to have the baby that came from her eggs.)

So I say if you have droopy breasts because you breastfed your babies, rejoice in the droop when you look at your children running around. You fed those kids from your body-- Your beautiful breasts attest to that. If you're stomach looks like cottage cheese from being pregnant, go look at your sleeping child-- It came out of you. Even if you look this and never had a child, think of your life, who you are, what your body has done for you. It's carried you places, it's given you a story to tell. If your feet are calloused and you hate those callouses, why not think about all the places those feet have taken you? I know not every scar, or droop, or fat cell has a happy story to accompany it, but think of the ones that do, and I think you'll be alright.

Perfection is boring. It's the scars, lumps, and bumps that tell the true story. The one you want to hear.