A skin of stories
Imagine our skin could tell a story. Imagine writing all over our body for everybody to see and read. Now we see stories in each others eyes. We listen, we feel and we understand. But without us thinking about it, our skin tells a story. A story of life, of adventure, of pain and of experience. A story that is hidden in plain sight. Scars, wrinkles and calluses hiding a tale we might not yet have told to anybody. Personal victories, fears and experiences forever in our memory.
I love my little scars, although I don’t have many. The scar between my eyes reminds me of my mother telling me a story while I fell asleep in a hospital bed for my first ever tiny operation as a child. The scar on my left hip reminds me of the toughest hike I ever did in my life. It reminds me that life can be so much more. The scar on my right shin reminds me of the first week Jonas and I met. Okay, I fell over a small wall and made a complete fool of myself, but I choose to remember the good that came from it. A relationship that made me stronger and turned me into the person I am today. The girl that hikes, rides motorbikes, travels and enjoys to feel the world instead of observing it from afar. My bruised feet remind me that if everything was taken away from me, I am lucky enough to be able to walk around and discover the world carrying everything I need on my back. My wrinkled hands remind me that I am living, learning, working to achieve my goals. Probably I won’t be as happy about wrinkles appearing on my face the coming years, but hey, also those will be part of me and my story. In my opinion, sometimes wrinkles make people more beautiful. More real, honest and pure. Perfection isn’t what beauty really is about. It’s about the honesty of being. The truth of who we are. The truth of who we might become.
I love to see the world as a compilation of stories. Stories I know, stories I am discovering and stories I don’t know even exist. We all are formed by a life we haven’t told to one another and yet we often don’t realise how special our stories are. We are all unique in our story and how we live it. A smile can be just as beautiful as a tear. As long as it is real. As long as it doesn’t hide who we really are. Beauty is hidden in the details.
Beauty is when we decide to see the full picture.
